On a drenched Wednesday morning a couple of weeks ago, I was heading to work. I'd dropped my rugrat off at the daycare and was merrily on my way in the downpour, perhaps a bit too cautious. I crested a hill and started down it when I felt her slip out from underneath me. I tapped the brake gently, and off to the right I went, then back across the center line, facing back up the hill on the left hand edge of the road -
And that's the moment I knew it was over. It still stops me dead in my tracks - like I'm a rubberband tensed to its utmost before it either snaps or you release me, or like I'm leaning back in a chair on its two hind legs before I feel the floor begin to pull me down.
That moment. That instant before chaos.
For some reason, I looked down at the radio. Hell, I was only a passenger at this point anyway.
Belle snapped back around and started down an embankment - was I sideways? was i pointed forward? i don't recall - and I braced myself as she smashed her beautiful front end against a tree.
I guess I must have been sideways, but I sure as hell don't remember how I got there. (This picture was taken from the direction I was driving.)
Yes, I made it through OK with only a place on my hand where the airbag went off. And I guess if there's any sort of pet peeve I've gained over the last two weeks, it's this: "Well, at least you weren't hurt. Cars can be replaced. People can't. etc etc etc"
I'm completely aware that maybe I shouldn't be here talking to you right now. But I am. I walked away, and that part is behind me. I was over that part about 20 seconds after the accident, despite the people who thought my hand was broken.
Here's my thing. I've heard what I wanted to hear from, I believe, exactly one person. Someone who actually said, "That sucks about your car."
And that person has no idea how eternally fucking grateful I am to hear that.
Seriously.
Here's why.
I've finally gotten to a point in my life where I can have something nice. Something I want to drive for my own enjoyment, not because it was the only financially feasible option at the time. I endured a steady diet of unexciting, unreliable automobiles the last 19 years. The names ring hollow like a veritable Murderer's Row of shite - an Escort, a Metro, a Corolla, a station wagon I bought for $100 whose make and model escapes me right now, and an Escape, which I was driving before Belle. The only other vehicle I held even a twinge of emotion for was a Ranger, which was also totaled in an accident (not my fault!).
Belle was the first car I ever loved. Hell, Belle was the first car I ever named.
"Well, you can always get another one," well-meaning people would tell me.
OK, I'll do that - only if you do one thing for me. When your pet that you've loved for months or years ups and dies from cancer or gets hit or whatever, why don't you go out and get another one right away? Like, the day you bury it.
Do you understand now???
***
We had her towed home for reasons still completely unclear to me, and I was miserable for the next two days looking at this:
It doesn't look *that* bad in the pics, though it was much worse in 3-D. Still, the tow truck driver offered a glimmer of hope when he came by to pick her up from the house (WTF?) - "I think she's fixable." And I was giddy.
Till the following Monday, when they called and told me she was a total loss.
And now she's gone. And I am crushed. I am heartbroken. Still, two weeks after the fact. And I cry a little bit on the inside every morning when I leave the house for work and get back into the soulless small SUV that I was driving before I fell in love.
I think it's a metaphor for something that I don't want to put to words yet.
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