Bleh bleh bleh.

[valis2]

So I ended up going to the doctor yesterday because I started feeling sick again. Apparently the antibiotics didn't knock out the sinus infection entirely, and now I'm feeling pretty awful.

I feel so strange, too. One of the things on my plate for this week was purchasing a new car. I needed to buy it before I leave in mid-March, and I was hoping to find something. Well, a friend researched it for me and found something promising, and then I spent Sunday and Monday going to dealerships. Let me tell you, this is not the time to be buying a used car. I couldn't find anything.

So I ended up buying the car my friend found. Turns out it was at the dealership I bought my Cavalier from, ten years ago. It was also, quite frankly, about 99% perfect for what I had in mind, and just a teensy bit outside of my price range. I think, were I to live a normal life, I'd be quite enthused that I bought the car on Monday (picked it up yesterday morning). I think I'd be jumping up and down.

But it's weird. I feel...depressed. A little of it has to do with having a car payment again after so many years without, but a lot of it has to do with the fact that my sweet little blue Cavalier is going straight to the junkyard. As I was going to the dealership, I passed a tractor-trailer hauling car carcasses, and I was just totally upset.

I feel guilty. After ten years, 195,000 miles, its stubborn ability to start in nearly any situation, its amazing fortitude upon being loaded up to its maximum weightload, and its constant companionship, I hate to resign it to the scrap heap.

It also really isn't sinking in that the new vehicle is mine, honestly, because I drive a different vehicle about five to eight weeks of the year, so I think my brain is still thinking I'm driving a company vehicle.



I will miss you, boon companion.

Comments

[avus.livejournal.com]

Never put down your ability to care, especially in the face of another's or another thing's vulnerability. It's, perhaps, our most important gift, to others and to ourselves. When we share a part of our life with someone or, indeed, some place or some "thing", whatever we share w/ becomes a part of us. There's neurological evidence that it becomes part of our brain. I strongly suspect it's much more, as we have no way to measure the soul, nor are we likely to.

What you're saying is that the car was not merely a tool, some thing to do w/ carelessly, and then to discard w/o a thought or, more importantly, a care. It had become important in your life. Obviously, in your writing, here, you're anthropormorphizing it, making it as if it were human. That's b/c, I suspect, our language has no common way for us to let others know when some "thing", that's not specifically "alive", has become part of us, even a deep part.

This reminds me a learning when I was involved in a two year training, perhaps 20 years ago, with a gentleman who was half Native American. (I don't remember what tribe.) Once a trainer made a distinction between what's alive and what's not. Art spoke up, simply, but powerfully with truth: "My grandmother thinks mountains are alive."

I realized, then, so do I. So, by the way, does the great early naturalist/ecologist Aldo Leopold, in his wonderful essay, "Thinking Like A Mountain" (in his beautiful Sand County Almanac).

You think of cars as alive. Or perhaps more acurately, as participating meaningfully in life.

But I go on.

Hope you get better soon. Sorry I'm not around lj much. RL extremely busy.

All the best to you & yours,

avus

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Aw, thank you so much! I really appreciate your comment very much.

I do tend to assign too much emotion to things, and I try not to, because it sometimes backfires. I get too attached. I mean, I know it's just a car, but still...I just think of what a great vehicle it was, how simple it was, and how easily it took me from point A to point B, how many solitary miles I spent under its roof...and I get a little sad.

Eventually I'll remember that it was leaking coolant into the passenger footwell for three years, that it just didn't have the cargo capacity that I need, and that the passenger window wouldn't roll down. But for right now, I'm having a little Cavalier pity party. heh.

The best to you and yours as well. I'll be in CO in late April/early May for a few days, btw...we'll have to see if we can finally hook up!

[avus.livejournal.com]

I'll be in CO in late April/early May for a few days, btw... we'll have to see if we can finally hook up!

My wife & I would enjoy that. We failed miserably to axe murder privatemaladict & nanki__poo when they visited in early December. Perhaps we can do better.

As you might imagine, I'm a bit cautious about putting address, phone, etc., on lj. Just email me at avus1927@yahoo.com. If your email monicker isn't valis2 or something close, put that in the title of the email. I'm cautious and never open any email where I don't know the sender.

Let's make it happen!

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Oh, no problems, I would be cautious about that too. I don't lock anything, myself, so I like to be a bit careful too. I'll email you soon and hopefully we can work something out!

*hugs*

[marginaliana]

Wow, this is really a very insightful comment, and I agree. valis2, you care about something - that's a good thing. The things we use and own and work with necessarily become part of us. I think that's an important part of what being a human being means.

*stops self from rambling about humanity and compassion and so forth* :D

[avus.livejournal.com]

It's all right to ramble about "humanity and compassion and so forth". Sometimes it's even important or necessary to do so.

*grins*