Farewell, My Faithful Steed

It was nine years ago that my parents bought me a '98 Nissan Altima from our next-door neighbor.  It has been my one and only car.  My Calvin College sticker still clings to the back windshield--one of the last visible signs of my youth.  For the last couple of years, my car has housed two carseats, spilled sippy cups, dirty diapers, and a sea of crushed goldfish, and yet I felt somewhat prideful that I was still young enough to be driving my first car.  When you get married a month after you graduate from college and a week after you turn 22, you don't have many big reminders of life before "I do."  This was one of my final links, and now it's time to hand over the keys.

My car has traveled many roads.  It kept this Maryland girl safe as I fishtailed down snowy Michigan roads headed for my student teaching gig.  It heard my grumbles and usage of a few choice words at Midwesterners for their ability to open school in the midst of a blizzard and their inability to handle a 90 degree summer day.  One May its trunk carried textbooks and backpacks, twin sheets, and a myriad of college wear.  And a month later, it was packed to the gills again, this time clutching dishes, towels, queen sheets, and wedding presents.  Its steering wheel felt my sweaty hands as I embarked on my first day of teaching.  Its radio belted music on carefree summer days as Ben and  I journeyed down the eastern part of the country.  And on a cold December day when we brought our tiny boys home from the hospital, its cramped backseat cradled two babies with me wedged in between because I feared they wouldn't make the two mile trek home.

At the end of the day, it's just a car--a bunch of metal, and plastic, and a sprinkling of rust.  Yet, it's been in my life from college, to my newlywed days, to the beginning of motherhood.  It has driven me through many memories.  Never a main character, but always there.

But today will be the last day it's there, at least there for me.  It's time to say goodbye, hand over the keys, warn the new owner of the sun visors that randomly fall while you're driving and the power locks that are most certainly possessed.  Time for me to convince myself that driving a mini-van can be a very cool thing.  And time to watch Old Faithful drive off into the sunset to new journeys and new memories.    

Don't worry--it's not a dead body.  Just me taking a nap.