A Love Letter To My Car
Dear Car,
I purchased you for only $3,090 back in 2003. I don’t recall why that figure wasn’t rounder. It certainly should have been higher. You were only 8 years old back then. I drove you for almost another 8. You spent half of your life with me.
You were a good-looking car. Always tan and lean. Not lean and mean, mind you. Lean and approachable. Lean with a welcoming invitation to spend time together.
I sure did take you up on that invitation, didn’t I? When we first met, you had been driven 106 thousand miles. When I said goodbye, you were somewhere around 230. Sometimes, we drove to places nearby. Remember all those times we went for ice cream? And then, we took trips to far away places. We even went to different countries together if you count Texas. I even wrote about you during that time. Don’t you remember?
I will admit that things were awkard between you and I at first. How odd it was for me to get used to wrapping my knees around your steering mechanism so they would fit. I never once thought about how uncomfortable it may have made you feel. Looking back, I think you were okay with it. I think you knew how much I liked you. For that reason, I think you liked me in return.
You took me to classes and games and my first full-time jobs. We reflected on things together on long rides home. Then, there were times when it wasn’t just you and me. You saw people I picked up and dropped off and listened in on conversations that meant the world to me.
When I wasn’t using you, you sat outside – oftentimes in the bitter cold. You just stayed there – waiting for me. When I did come, you did your best to keep me warm and take me where I needed to go. I rarely spent time with you solely for the purpose of being together. Even then, it was only to listen to the end of Lionel Ritchie songs from your speakers. You were always a means to an end, yet never complained.
I was a young man when I first got you. I’m not so young anymore. At the same time, you aged too. First, your window wouldn’t close. Then, your dashboard lights went out. Then, the radio. Then, the air conditioner. Then the thing that pops the hood open. Then there was the time I backed you into a tree and brushed you across a guard rail. We were both so happy for that screw which reattached your front bumper. Then the grill came off. Then, I couldn’t even open you until I went to the passenger side. Even then, the key didn’t work so well on that side either.
They started telling me to get rid of you. I tried to hide this from you for so long. It pains me to even say it, but you weren’t stupid. You had a feeling something was brewing. I wasn’t even tempted to let you go. I would do anything for air conditioning, but I wouldn’t do that. No, no, I wouldn’t do that. How could we part ways after all we had been through? How could I say goodbye after how you had treated me?
But the outside pressure started getting to me. First, I agreed to consider getting rid of you in the summer. Then in the fall. Or Christmas. Or when I got my bonus. Still, I resisted. The thought of separation was too painful. I would not cave. You would have to be ripped apart from me before I would let you go.
And ripped apart you were. In those last moments we were crusing along until someone (surely a New York Yankees fan) cut us off. I was so focused on giving him an angry glare, I had no idea that your front right wheel was about to be sliced open and our time together was about to end. After operating, we learned that the problem ran much deeper. Your entire front end was gone. I couldn’t watch you suffer. You were no longer fit for the roads. You had to be put to sleep. You were a cross between The Little Engine That Could and a filly that runs injured and has to be put down after a race. You gave me everything you had – right until you died.
Eventually, my memories of the times we shared together will fade. I will move on to another car – probably a better one by most standards. But you, despite all your imperfections, will always mean something to me. You will mean my 20’s and everything that went with it. You weren’t just any car. You were my car. And, sometime between the knee straddling and last abrupt moments together on Route 128, something happened. I fell in love with you. So, goodbye, car. If you could talk, we’ld sure have a lot of stories.
Cam the Camry :10/07/03 – 01/25/11
