Parallels and Parking

Cars are important to us as a people. They take us to work, home, wherever we want to go, but more than that, they become a member of the family. We give them names, we find personalities in them.

Once upon a time and long ago, I had an old silver station wagon and he had a little red truck. Before either of us could express our feelings, we would park side by side every day, like an unspoken date that neither of us stood up. Our first Valentine's Day, I left cookies hanging in a bag on his antenna. We slept in my car a few times. The truck took us to Rock Hall in a terrible snowstorm(and only slipped a little). Orion took us to Georgia, earning himself a new windshield in the process, and that trip marked the first time we slept next to each other without any barriers between us.

Then, Orion needed a new fuel pump. For the first few months of living in our apartment, the truck carried us both. Then, when my baby finally went away(but before it was, in fact, final) the truck carried us both again, if begrudgingly.

I remember sitting in our print shop, feeling utterly hopeless. It was like my car and my relationship were in tandem, spiraling downward as a pair.

Jupiter came into my life, thankfully, and I started feeling solid and real again. My spirit, incarnate, for less than $3 a gallon. I still have Orion, in a way, and if I truly wanted I could put the money into him and fix him up, but I'm starting to know when I'm not able to put forth the amount of effort it takes to fix something.

Last Friday, we junked the truck. It was old, you could barely turn it, and it had started speeding up of it's own accord(I know we've joked that Alex's truck was trying to kill him, but it was really putting in some effort near the end). I was the one that flat-towed it to the junkyard(flat-towing is when you tie a powerless car to a much bigger van or truck and drag it along. Neat fact: The speedometer still works in car #2, so you get to see how fast you're going with almost no brakes. Whoo!)

Friday, the muse and I are traveling down to potentially pick up his new car, and the parallels are too great to go unwritten about. Here I am, with a new car and a new spirit. Here I am, with a new person and a new heart. And really, the road ahead is still unclear, but I think this car is gonna bring me through it just fine.