At the end of 2016, I purchased a new car. I really couldn't afford it, having gone back to school earlier in the year, but it was time. It had gotten to the point that my previous vehicle (a 2001 VW Beetle) was starting to cost me, as Volkswagens are wont to do, too much to maintain. Each trip to the auto repair was often several hundred dollars, sometimes more. Although the visits to the shop were only every couple of months, my bank account or my credit cards were always overworked during those visits. Ultimately, I was paying more in repairs than what the car was worth. It seemed more viable to pay a bit each month on a new car instead, regardless of the potential financial strain.
So, a new car I obtained. It was relatively non-descript and semi-inexpensive and not at all top of the line. It didn't have some of the basic features of my Beetle (power locks, 6 CD changer, car alarm), but it was new and it was mine. No one financially helped me to buy it (although a friend at the dealership did assist in garnering a discount). I handled the paper work, registered it...all of it, my doing. It was almost like a rite of passage.
Because my Beetle was so, shall we say "loved", however, the dealer wouldn't give me any trade-in money for it, so into the carport it went until I could find a buyer. I removed the license plates when I transferred my registration to my new vehicle and there the Beetle stayed. This, of course, did not sit well with the H.O.A. of my housing complex, who promptly stickered the car with a warning that it needed to be registered or removed. Sure, they couldn't be bothered to fix the siding on the building or convince my neighbors not to let their dog poop in the communal grass without cleaning it up or tell my other neighbors that three large trucks are two too many to park in the communal carport, but my recently unregistered car was offensive to their housing management sensibilities.
I tried to sell the damned thing. I tried to give it away. One attempt after another kept falling through. Finally, today it all worked out and my well-worn Beetle was adopted by its new owner.
As I watched my little green car being driven away by someone who was not me, I felt a twinge of melancholy. Sure there was relief to just be done with the whole thing, but sadness as well. I realized as the car left my driveway that it had been the last vestige of my marriage. The last thing my ex and I had ever shared (except our daughter of course). We'd bought that car together. Hell, his name had been on the original title for it.
And yet, most of my good times in that car had had nothing to do with him. He'd so rarely ridden in it, in fact. Whenever we'd taken road trips, he generally drove us in his vehicle. Instead my Kermit (as I'd affectionately called it) had been host to long solitary drives, raucous laughter and inane conversations with friends, adventures with my daughter, various trunks full of costumes--even a few, exhilarating post-divorce snogs. Other than the initial purchase, he'd really had no actual stake in that car, yet there I was mourning its passing from my hands to another's.
It felt like the end of an era.
And so it was. Gone was the car that would incite children everywhere to point and laughingly punch their friends ("SLUG BUG!"). Gone was the car that distinguished me from other local drivers. Gone was the remaining shared tie to my ex-husband.
Then, just as quickly as it struck me, the melancholy left. What remained was a sense of calm and relief...until, that is, I had to park my new car in the carport next to the neighbor's overly large truck.
But that's a story for another day.
Until next time, my Lovelies....
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