Letting Go…
I recently sold a car I’d been driving for the last 21 years. I bought her used – she was already three years old when I got her. At that time, the old girl was in great shape. A sporty luxury SUV, she held up incredibly well over the years and served me well. She was a pleasure to drive, and the ride was smooth (with the help of very good tires). I had a friend drive the car home from the repair shop once, and he was so impressed with the ride, he eventually bought a similar (newer) car.
Unfortunately, all good things come to an end. Gradually, over time, a few things started going wrong. The rear shocks/struts broke, but the ride was still acceptable – except when it was really cold out – and so I never bothered getting that fixed. Then the battery would go dead in cold weather. I’d put several replacement batteries in the car over the years, and never had any problems. So this refusal to start in cold weather or after sitting undriven for a week or so, became an issue. I had a new Toyota battery installed, but that didn’t help the situation. So I bought one of those compact jump-start batteries and carried it around in the car.
Then, little by little, other things quit working. The dome light wouldn’t come on anymore. The middle dash panel wouldn’t light up in cold weather. And on and on. I’d take the car in to fix obvious engine problems. But those repair incidents kept getting more frequent. Of course I realized there are maintenance and repair costs with any car, but especially so with an older car. However, these repair costs began to get a bit excessive. Yet I stuck with the old girl to see her through some serious repairs – I was that attached to the idea that the car was still in good shape body-wise, and could still serve me well.
I ended up forking over $5,000 to get a rebuilt engine installed. The car ran OK for quite a while – several years, in fact. But then other things kept going wrong. Eventually I realized that, if I was going to spend a couple thousand dollars over the course of every few months on a car I couldn’t really count on, I could just as well be making payments on a newer, more reliable car. And that is eventually what happened. I bought a newer (much more expensive!) version of my old girl. Now the dilemma was … what to do with the old girl.
I toyed with the idea of giving the car to my nephew (who goes through cars like most people change their underwear). But I couldn’t stomach the thought of seeing the old girl sent to that ruinous fate. So I eventually decided to sell her to a stranger, so I’d never see her again. A friend of a friend of a friend (stranger to me) ended up buying the car “as is” – having been informed it had some problems. And as I watched the old girl drive down the road, out of sight forever, I shed a couple tears, knowing it would still live on to serve someone else.
Yes, I know. Inanimate objects, such as a car, are just utilitarian things. But after 21 years of personal interaction, it’s hard not to form an emotional attachment of some sort. Letting go is pretty hard after a long ride like that. I wish her well in her new journey without me, and think about her fondly. Goodbye, old girl.
