Testimony to a Car

I sold my car today... I cried. Scratch that, I sobbed.


This was my first car, I have had it since I was 16, almost 17. My dad bought it for me, but I had to pay the insurance. $300 a month for a teenage girl to drive a red sports car in Miami. F*ck me. That was my entire paycheck in high school. There are a lot of memories I have with that car, as strange as that may seem. I mean, it is just a car after all. But the first time I had a cigarette was in that car, as was the first time I smoked a non-cigarette. The first time I skipped school, the time I got in trouble for skipping school because I got in an accident while pulling out of the parking lot, the countless times I drove to Miami Beach to go surfing (usually during school hours), all the driving back and forth from college, the time it broke down on the way to spring break... I was in that car.

I didn't want to sell it. Not even a little bit. She worked great, and the little problems here and there seemed more like quirks than issues. But we needed to money in order to pay for the move. So a nice little family drove down from Georgia to come take my baby home with them. They will definitely appreciate this car, their little girl will love it (she apparently laid across the hood and cried when they sold their last car... a girl after my own heart I guess), and so that makes me feel better. But I still feel like I just let someone adopt my child for cash, and it really really hurts.

Of course, I am really looking forward to the move... it will be a good change and will give us a chance to get on our feet and do the things we want to do. And selling the car was our only option for financing this. So ultimately I am fine with it, I just feel a little like my parents took my security blanket away because I "need to be a big girl now" (my parents never did this, don't worry... but maybe that's why I wasn't prepared for this feeling).

Anyways, I figured the best way to deal with it was to write it out. And then go treat the two of us to a long-overdue dinner of stuffed grouper at Ballyhoo's. It is delicious and seriously worth it.