Change is hard. It sucks. I have never been good with change and I fight it all the way. I don’t know why I fight it because sometimes change is a good thing. I mean, it’s important to change your clothes, change your underwear, and change your makeup every day. Sometimes you need to change jobs, change addresses, and sometimes you need to change your partner. So, change can be good.
However, I am faced with a changing moment in my life and it is breaking my heart. I need to let go of my car, my precious purple PT Cruiser Limited. Did I mention it was precious-and purple? I love that car!!!
I bought it back in 2009 and I was the second owner. This was a proud moment for me since I was used to driving junk yard specials and cars with grass growing under the brake pedal. I think one or two had mice living in them.
My mom had just died three years before and I needed an upgrade-badly. I could drive on Route 67 (a road near my home) and mark every place my old car had broken down. So, when the Cruiser came into my life, I had just sold some property and paid off the mortgage to my childhood home. Now a homeowner, I needed a new ride so I bought the Cruiser. I even paid cash for it. That meant a lot to me. Did I mention it was precious-and purple?
Well, after almost nine years, it’s getting old and racking up some miles-130,000 is not too bad but it’s starting to have some issues that to repair, will cost more than the car is worth. So, I went car shopping and I was like a kid in a candy store. I wanted a new Camaro and the new Jeep Wrangler Sport-okay slow down-I am a writer which means, I am usually starving and buying my clothes at Goodwill.
So, after coming down from the clouds, I decided to look for another Cruiser. Oh, they were everywhere! Cheap too! However, since they stopped making them in 2010, the only ones I could find had a zillion miles on them. So, I kept looking. “What do you want?” Steve asked me. “What are you looking for?”
Well, I love the retro look, the look of the old cars of the 1930’s. I wanted a vehicle that looked like a PT Cruiser and a Jeep had a baby. 🙂
I absolutely LOVE this retro look of the 1930s!
I saw a lot of Jeeps but nothing jumped out at me, until one day…
My niece and I were driving down the road and in my rearview mirror I saw it. I saw the vehicle I wanted. I had to have. I needed.
“What is that?” I shouted, “Look, behind us, coming up next to me, what is that?”
We didn’t know so I said, “Follow that car!”
Followed it, I did-For a few miles until it turned into the local Walmart and parked in the Garden Department. Pulling up next to it, a man and a woman got out and looked at me as I slowed down.
“Hi,” I said, “I have been following you.”
Looking at each other, the woman said, “Oh really?”
I laughed and explained I was looking for another car and fell in love with theirs-from afar. Now up close. It was a Dodge Nitro and I think right then and there I wanted to marry it.
After much car shopping, I went back to the dealer where I purchased the Cruiser. I gave the salesman my wish list and within a few weeks, a Dodge Nitro rolled onto their lot. It was loaded and came with my major requirement-a moon roof.
Only problem was-it was White and I had said no Red or White vehicles. “Just come look at it,” he said. Oh boy, I know what that means.
Well, I loved it and after test driving it downtown, I bought it that day. Now I am being teased with everyone calling it “Gangsta” …whatever! I snap back and say, “Yeah, well Bonnie and Clyde were gangsters too and that was the era I was looking for-the style-everything!” Plus, as an added bonus, when you unlock the car, it sounds like a machine gun-just like Bonnie and Clyde.
That is being fixed and no big deal but wait, what about my Cruiser. My precious and purple PT Cruiser Limited.
I pulled the Nitro into my driveway and there she was, my Cruiser. The guilt overcame me and I began to cry. I felt as though I was abandoning an old dog who needed surgery and I couldn’t afford it.
Like a friend who had been good to me all those year was now going away and the choice to leave was mine, not hers. I was making her leave, casting her out, letting her go…
Silly, I know, but that is how I felt. I still feel that way. She is still in the driveway. I need to sell her and let her go.
My PT Cruiser Limited and my Dodge Nitro in my driveway.
Why do we hold on to such things? A car has no soul (expect a KIA-get it, KIA Soul) yet it still haunts me that I need to sell her. I attach such sentiment onto items that have no heart, no feeling, no emotions, it’s a machine that gets me from Point A to Point B. But I love that car!
I am the same way with everything. I struggle with letting go of clothes I no longer wear, papers that have no value or use, and stuff that means nothing to me.
I am one step away from an episode of Hoarders. Well, I’m not that bad-yet.
If you want to get philosophical, we are just here, in our lives, on a temporary basis. This life is not permanent so we shouldn’t attach ourselves to things because this is not our permanent home. Deep huh? That is truly how I feel so why is it so hard to let go?
I know in time I will love my Nitro just the same or maybe even more. See, I even feel guilty saying that out loud. The Cruiser represents my free spirt, my Bohemian heart, and my gypsy style, yet at one time, it felt unique and now I see them everywhere. But I am still a free spirit, I still have a Bohemian heart, and a gypsy style…another car isn’t going to change that about me. It’s an upgrade-I have evolved-and it’s a new chapter in a new beginning in my life.
(Sigh) I know this week, she will be put on the hill and priced to sell. I will be honest about any repairs or issues I know she is suffering with and once she is gone, I will cry. Did I mention I will cry? ♥
Lisa V. Proulx, Author/Speaker 