goodbye, car

Unlike Robin, I did not name my car. But I did not love it any less for that. A car is a very personal thing, a vital part of your identity, just as a job is. My black 1995 Camry has been a great car: safe, quiet, reliable, comfortable and capable of impressive acceleration when merging onto the highway. I always felt my Camry could handle whatever life threw at it, as when I was rear-ended twice in the span of three months and walked away without even a trace of whiplash.
If there is some confusion of tenses here, it is because I sold my Camry today. This morning I was running errands in it, listening to old songs on my ancient cassette tapes that I now no longer have a way to play. Then I met my buyer at the bank, money changed hands, the title was signed over and notarized, we went to the dmv together and I turned in my battered old license plate, the one that was rear-ended three times. (The first time, my previous car was parked on the street and it was totaled by a school bus, but that is another story.) The buyer gave me a ride home, and drove off in his Camry.
I thought I would feel very sad, but instead I felt strangely free. Lighter. Without my car, without my job, soon to leave the house I have loved so much, who am I? I just am.
Part of the attachment you have to your car is the life you lived in it. In Robin's case she spent a lot of time in her Forester, driving from Raleigh to Smithfield when she still worked with me, ferrying her children about. I remember when she bought it, how happy she was. Getting rid of a car is such a irrevocable thing!
I found myself remembering when my husband -- but he was still my boyfriend then -- got rid of his first car. In Poland, he had never owned a car. In America, washing dishes in Chapel Hill and learning English, he bought a little Dodge Colt that had nothing: no radio, no a/c, nothing. It made the Toyota Tercel he owned next seem luxurious. I remember taking our stuff out of the car at the dealership the night he bought the Tercel, carefully peeling the Solidarity sticker off the bumper. We had met when he owned this car. We had even taken it to Ocracoke, our one vacation when we were very poor. I remember I was crying, and feeling silly for doing so. But it seemed like a certain chapter of our lives ended forever that night, saying goodbye to the Dodge Colt.