The Inability to Unsee

One of the major Plot Points of our move is that I am selling my wonderful car.  I've had my Civic for ten years, and I love her- I love my wonderful car that shuttled me around in the latter half of college, that took my surfboard and I to the coast once a week for two years, and that has carried me back and forth across the entire breadth of the States not just once but three times.  And when I look at my wonderful car, I see her just as I did ten years ago, the day that I purchased her: young and fun and kind of sporty.

But then I decided to sell her (for a variety of Very Sensible Reasons), which necessitated looking at her with an Objective Eye.  And I suddenly realized... she's not that car.  Or, rather, she is, but she's not in the same pristine condition I still saw her in.  She has all these tiny little scratches and dings and dents that I just never noticed before... but now that I've seen them I can't stop seeing them, and it's just horrifying me to realize that anyone might look at my car and see a ten year old vehicle instead of the gorgeous young thing I rolled off the lot in.  None of these things are bad, or really even flaws- it's just sobering to realize that time has not left my car unscathed.

::sigh::

(There's a metaphor for life in there, I just know it...)

But the bright side to this story is that I am selling her to a person who plans to use her for his daughter (turning sixteen soon) and that makes me happy because I think she really will be just an excellent First Car for a teenager.  She may not be "cool" (can a four-door sedan ever be "cool"?) but she's definitely not lame (poor Nathan was driving a minivan in high school), and most importantly can be counted on to get a body from point A to point B (not always a guarantee amongst my friends' cars when we were that age).

So there's that.  By Friday the 4th (the day we head out of here) we will be a one-car household.  It's definitely making our cross-country trip more bearable (I've done this with and without someone to share the drive: believe me when I say with is the preferable scenario), and it will save us a ton on insurance, etc (we're using the proceeds from my car to pay off the last bit of Nathan's- er, our Fit).  Plus let's face it- if you're living in/near Portland, you really don't need more than one car.  A lot of people have expressed horror that we're getting rid of my car ("You mean you're not getting a new one once you're up there?!") but I actually think it makes a lot of sense.  Expect to be kept updated on whether or not I end up eating my own words...



PS The weird thing is that, when I bought my car, I thought I'd have kids by now (hence the whole four-door sedan portion).  I don't, obviously- and that is a situation I am okay with- but it's still a little weird to be confronted with the Assumptions of One's Youth and the Refutations Thereof...