My husband is set to attend NYU Law and our entire lives – which we’ve spent the last 3 years settling DEEPLY into with 3-bedroom home, pool, renovations, pregnancy, and so on – are turning upside down as we prepare to move from a quiet and warm Californian suburb to the noisy, over-crowded, chaotic New York City. Frivolous or maladjusted is probably how this will sound to most but it does not change my reality: I am in deep mourning over the impending sale of my car.
In 2007 I experienced what I eventually learned would only be the first of many “Dark Nights of the Soul,” prompting a retreat from bible college back to home, a failure at 19. Throughout this time the following occurred: my dad spent extended time in the ICU, my grandmother to whom I was very close and had weekly visits passed away suddenly and painfully, my brother a.k.a. my ally and life-raft got married and moved across the country, my heart was broken, and I totaled my previous car in an unfortunate discord of right-of-way, going a measly 25 MPH, and spent the next year (really forever) in deep guilt over the elderly man in the other vehicle.
What naively never occurs to me until after the fact is how deeply one event can alter the entire trajectory of your life. After that crash, I gave myself the first free pass I’d ever allowed: I dropped a class after one session just because it overwhelmed me. I took a fun course just to feel better, though the auditorium seats during the movie screenings took a toll on my sprained back. And I only took 9 units – that is PART-TIME. In a way I failed myself but I also finally let myself breathe; I’ve never really been able to untangle the difference between the two.
Some months later I got a new car: a 2008 “Jetta, only Betta’.” Strong, bulkier than the last one, and with top-tier safety ratings and heated seats I felt enveloped in a warm cocoon after a year-long storm. I got my groove back and flew down I-5 to visit friends all over the south. Cell phone use wasn’t yet illegal so I spent the peaceful highway hours catching up on all my relationships, or played hardcore bands and Rilo Kiley loud enough to cover my own screams.
The Mo’ Betta’ Jetta moved me and all my things to LA when I decided to try the bible college town again, but this time sans bible college. It moved me back home when my body said, “NOPE, you haven’t healed at all, drop all your classes you gigantic failure,” and up to UC Berkeley when I finally got it together enough to transfer.
The first evening I hung out with my now-husband, my other friend was too tired to drive so we took one car and he drove mine back to the dorm in Berkeley, all the while listening to my mix cds and getting to know his future wife from the intimate, revealing space of a person’s car. When now-husband moved away for school and I nearly died of loneliness, the Jetta escorted me to retrieve Debbie Harry the dog, my newest best friend and near-child who protected and bolstered me during the miserable long-distance portion of our relationship.
It feels silly to look back on a possession – especially such a seemingly utilitarian one – and feel personal loss. But beyond transportation, that car was my only constant companion through an entire decade of turmoil, loss, love, and change. I’ve spent more time with that vehicle than in any home I have ever lived. It has been the most constant thing in my life and now, as we leave our beautiful home and neighborhood to move to a dorm room in a giant city, I feel deep loss.
In The Office episode where Michael prepares to leave for Colorado he expresses doubt because he can’t understand how a supposedly positive choice should involve such excruciating feelings, something which I have long struggled with as a person who cannot plan past their nose (though that’s another story for another day):
“Why am I so sad? Am I doing the wrong thing?”
“Absolutely not. It’s just that, sometimes… goodbye’s are a bitch.”