Grief

We all know what grief is. I dare say we’ve all experienced it at various times during our lives. Well, I’m dealing with grief of a slightly different kind.

We’ve decided to get rid of my car.

This is my car. I picked it. I bought it. I paid for it. It’s mine, through and through.

It’s a 2007 Pontiac G6, red in color. I bought it about the time I retired, so right about 2010. It has served us well for 13 years.

But…

I don’t feel I can trust it right now. It needs work. A lot of work. And I haven’t got the money. It needs an oil change and maybe some brake work… I don’t remember all the routine maintenance the garage said it needed, but it amounted to about $600. I haven’t found that money in the almost-a-year it’s been sitting in our driveway. I am nervous just driving it 2 miles to the grocery store, for fear it won’t start (or something else goes wrong) so that I can’t get it home.

That isn’t all. There was a bunch of not-so-routine maintenance that they said it also needed. That is a further $500.

And to cap it all off, the AC unit is completely fried. That would be $5,000. Yes, it is that fried.

A year ago, I was thinking it needed some bodywork and a paint job. I was dreaming, of course.

We’ll try to sell it, but if anybody shows any interest in it, we’d have to tell them what a fixer-upper it is right now. It wouldn’t be honest or ethical to keep that to ourselves.

If we can’t sell it, we’ll give it away.

I’ll still have the memories, right? The memories of driving that car back and forth between Omaha and Orlando for several years. Memories of driving it to Kansas City and back to Omaha once a week to take a class on Theatrical Makeup. Those were lonely trips, with just me and my car. And a road Atlas to keep me from getting lost. I think I still remember the route.

There was one trip to Orlando where my hubby flew down to meet me for a vacation (as usual). This time, while we were there, he bought two big tubs of cosplay costumes and a bunch of supplies from Smooth-on. That was a very loaded down car for the trip back to Omaha!

Well, I could keep talking about memories all day. It won’t change anything.

It’s kind of like when your pet dog is on his last legs, won’t eat, can’t even keep water down, and you know it’s time to put him to sleep.

Yeah, it’s kind of like that.

But I’ll miss it.