New Car Angst

I'm in a post-y mood today. And still don't feel like looking up the cut-tag code. You've been warned.

This is a post that I've been meaning to make for a while. And, since I made a comment in elorie's LJ that relates to this, I really need to get off my ass and make this post.

I've talked to a few people about this. No one has seemed to really get it. Which is understandable, really. For one thing, I usually work this stuff out as I write. Saying anything about it before then just comes out not quite right, not quite sounding like what I mean.

Plus, what kind of idiot has angst about a getting a new car, right?

Well, herein is where I explain...

Some background first, would be in order, I think.

My first car (God rest her soul, 'cause she really did have one) was a 1975 Chevrolet Monte Carlo, purchased new by my grandparents, and left to my mother in their will. I got it when I became in need of a car. It was CHERRY, let me tell you. I know this because I personally turned it over the 100,000 mile mark in 1995, going 100 miles per hour northbound on historic US66. It was an event.

I LOVED that car. She (Whinx, short for White Minx) had a PERSONALITY, moreso than any car I've had since. I knew, as if by instinct, all the subtle ways of manuevering her to get her to work right. She started consistently in the Illinois winters, even better than my husband's 1991 Mustang. Not to mention the kickass V-8. Did I mention I LOVED this car?

My father, on the other hand, did NOT. He has this idea in his head that high-mileage cars, even one as well-cared-for as this one, were dangerous, unreliable. He and my mom had moved back to Indiana at this point, and it was a 3-hour drive for me to go visit. He took to calling the local car dealership and having a rental car ready for me when I made the trips. He said that the thought of me driving that car that far, or any distance, really, kept him awake at night. Eventually, he insisted that I get a new car. I kept saying I didn't WANT a new car, that I was happy with Whinx, that I considered her safe, reliable, etc., but he eventually wore me down. I got a 1996 Chevrolet Cavalier Z24 in cobalt blue. A nice little car, honestly. But then I was faced with the decision of what to do with Whinx. Even though Dad was paying for the new car, and Whinx was LONG since paid for, I was looking at insuring both cars myself. Money was tight, and I finally made the difficult decision to give her away to some friends who knew cars, and were basically planning on stripping her for parts.

SUCH a bad decision on my part. I was terribly attached to this car. Shortly thereafter, I gave a ride home to the guy who was keeping her at his house. In a fit of rage over something else entirely, he'd taken it out on her with a crowbar. Not only was her engine gutted, which had been planned, but her formerly-pristine body was covered in dents, the windshield and windows smashed... it wasn't pretty. That car was like my own family to me, and I cried as if I'd sent my own child away to what I thought was a loving home, only to find it covered with bruises. (I don't wanna hear any comparisons from the mothers out there. I know I've never had kids and couldn't possibly make any REAL type of comparison between my car and a child, but that's as close a similarity as I can come.)

I STILL regret that decision.

I got somewhat attached to the new car, too. I tentatively called it Ice, but hesitated to do so, 'cause I was friends online with a guy with the screen name Ice Person, and I didn't want it to be like I was naming the car after him, which I wasn't. Secretly, though, it was the only name that would stick.

Since that car was leased, I had to give it up in 3 years, and my dad got me another new one. I tried a black LS sedan that year, just to see if I liked 4-door cars. I really didn't. That car got in a wreck within a month of getting it, but the wreck wasn't my fault. I was, in fact, parked at the time. I say this because it's important to the story later. I should also point out that I'd never wrecked the blue car, and that I'd only ever had minor things with Whinx, which I attribute to being 16 or so. Other than that, I'd gotten sideswiped in my dad's car once. All those were my fault, but I was young and stupid then. Again, this has relevance later.

I was in the middle of the lease on the black car (for the life of me, I can't remember what I named that car, except that when I first saw it, the name just came to me...) when I decided to move to Atlanta. I was already famous for exceeding the mileage limit on lease cars. I knew that this would only be worse in Atlanta, and would end up costing my father a LOT of money in 2002, when the car was due to be turned back in. Plus, I didn't know how the laws would work with leasing a car from one state and living in another. Also, bear in mind that I did NOT share my father's views about a high-mileage car being a bad thing, and I did NOT want to have a new car all the time. I wanted to get one, and drive it till it fell apart around me. It seemed to me that getting a new car all the time was pretentious, wasteful, and short-sighted. Also, keep in mind how much I personified my cars to begin with, and how it was painful to get rid of the ones I was attached to. Which was most of them.

The dealer and I talked, and it turned out that I could BUY a car. Straight out. No lease. Under my own name, no co-signer. (This was before I moved to Atlanta and my credit went straight to hell.) I needed my dad's permission, 'cause his name was on the lease of the black car, and he had to release it. I also had to finance the remainder of the cost of the black car to the amount of the cost of the new car. At that time, I got a 2000 Chevrolet Cavalier Z24 in silver. It was an androgynous car that I named Sprite. (Whinx was female, Ice was male, the black car was female... don't ask me why... they just were.) I had gone on the internet, used the thing where you build a car according to the specs you want, and I walked into the dealership, threw down the paper, and said, "I want THIS."

And that's exactly what I got. Except for California emissions. Apparently you can't get those in other states.

I was very pleased with myself. I had bought a car, on my own, and assuming I made the same amount of money in Atlanta as I did in Illinois, the payments would be no problem.

At that time, I had no reason to believe I wouldn't find a job making a similar salary here. Silly me.

Well, I'm sure you've all heard my sob stories about how the job market down here wasn't what I expected, to say the least. Twice, I had to ask my dad to take over the car payments for me, as I could no longer afford them, and could barely afford much else. Now, keep in mind, this was no huge financial hardship for him. Hell, he'd been planning on making similar payments on leased cars, apparently indefinitely. But it was the PRINCIPLE of the thing, y'know?

Enter the near-now. My father was making the payments on my car, which was now 4 years old, and had over 100,000 miles on it. I had just (well, HE had just) forked over $1300 in fixing the brakes (I go through brakes fast), new tires, and a couple of other things that needed work. Routine maintenance, really. I had neglected to heed blckwngdorcl's advice on how close I was to the mailbox, and had put a long dent in the passenger side of the car. The first accident I'd had that was my fault since I was in the young and stupid stage. Remember this. Money was tight. I was discouraged, fragile, vulnerable.

Then I got a letter in the mail. From GMAC, or GM, or Chevy... I don't remember which. Anyway, it said something to the effect of: We see you have a car you're currently financing. Come on over to the dealer, and you can get a new car for a lower payment!

I initially dismissed that, as I had so many times before. But my father's words kept echoing in my head. High-mileage cars=bad. He stays awake at night worrying about me when it comes to me driving high-mileage cars. He's been nice enough to help me out financially all this time, in spite of the fact that he and mom cried for a weekend (that I know of, it was probably more) when I told them I was moving to Atlanta. He's currently making my $430/month car payment. Which could be lower, if I got a new car. And give him more peace of mind. I owe him that, don't I?

Do you see the train wreck coming? I should have...

So, I called him. Told him that I didn't personally want or need a new car. But that I knew his views on it, and if he was interested, I'd look into it.

He was.

I did.

Did the same internet build-a-car thing, but didn't print it out, 'cause my printer sucks, and I never got around to exploiting simplysakka's printer. Went to the dealership. Did the same, "I'm looking for THIS" thing. Added that if they couldn't find it, I wasn't interested. That I really wasn't interested, anyway, really. Well, they found what I wanted (they had to go out 1000 miles to find it, too). There was much calling back and forth between the dealer and my dad. I kept hemhawing, trying to tell my dad I didn't need/want this car, and he didn't have to get it for me. He did, anyway. My car, of course, had to be traded in.

However, because my credit has gone to hell in a handbasket over the past 4 years, I couldn't buy the car. I couldn't even cosign, without the interest rate going up to some crazyhigh amount. My dad had to buy it FOR me. My name wasn't going to be on the car at all.

So, the day came, and blckwngdorcl and I drove off in the new car. Another Cavalier, 2004, in black. An LS Sport, this time, since they no longer make the Z24s. He drove. I didn't want to. He was very pleased with it, having never had a new car before. It had 423 miles on it when we drove it away. But, eventually, he had to go home and go to sleep, and I had more errands to run, so I ended up driving it.

*sigh* I thought I'd read that the engine size in this car and my silver one were the same, but I was constantly burying the RPMs on this car to get it to move the same way. I called the dealer and asked about it. They said it was the same size engine, but less torque. I didn't realize that was so important, but believe me, it makes a HUGE difference. The more I drove the car, the unhappier I became. It wasn't just the acceleration, or lack thereof. I missed my old car. I called the dealer and said I wanted my old car back. He said it was a done deal. I told him I didn't want to give this one back. I knew it was a done deal. But I wanted to buy my old car back, no matter what the financing, the interest rate, whatever. He said he'd go get the keys, and see what he could do.

I was distraught, so I drove back to the dealership (which I hadn't told him I was doing). I wanted my car back NOW. Interestingly enough, I saw it being driven off the lot as I was coming in. I thought it was the people who did the cleaning up. He was surprised to see me back, and regretted to inform me that my car had already been sold. I didn't want to come right out and tell him I thought he was lying. I mean, what are the odds? Over the phone, he had told me he didn't even know how much they would be selling the car for, 'cause no one had looked it over, and then he tells me that someone had come in, loved it on sight, declined having the car cleaned up, and paid cash on the spot for it? Riiiiiight. So, to this day, I don't know if the story was true, and if it was the new owner(s) or the clean-up crew I saw drive my car off.

I left. I called him back on Monday (it was a Saturday we picked up the car) to give him a chance to back out of a lie. Reminded him that I wasn't trying to get out of the sale he'd already made. That if my car were for sale, he could make another sale off of it. Trying to appeal to his greed, which I'm assuming all salesmen have, and was the only reason I could think of for him to have lied to me in the first place, to protect the sale (read, money) he'd already made. He said he understood all that, and didn't come up with any story about the car being back. He could have easily said that, oh, how interesting that you called, 'cause the people brought it back just this morning - turns out it wasn't what they were looking for after all. But he didn't.

I even drove to the dealership one night to prowl the parking lot, but it was blocked off, with a security guard. Silly me. I'm from a much smaller town where you can wander places like that at night and window shop.

So, I'm stuck with this car I don't really want. And then things start to happen.

blckwngdorcl and I try to come up with a name for the car. The name Moonshadow pops, unbidden, into his mind. He's pretty sure it popped in from an external source, if you know what I mean. I like the name, it fits with a black car, and it feels right. I do recall thinking at the time, though, that it was unusual, 'cause he and I had already decided that the car was mostly his, since I just couldn't warm up to it. (Her - this car is a she.) Moon usually implies female, which would connect it more with me. But whatever. The name stuck.

Within the week after I got the car, I drove to Griffin to apply for a job. On the way there, I broadsided a mini-van. Not bad. I can give details of the wreck, if you like, but none of that is the point. I hit the brakes almost in time, which meant that basically, I got a very minor scrape on my front bumper which included a little streak of white paint, and he got a 2-foot long black stripe on his passenger running board. I don't even think it dented it. Even so, my first my-fault wreck in over 10 years.

blckwngdorcl was kind, but firm. I was to pay more attention, and not break the prettyshiny car. He had his own issues surrounding that, of course. We'd already established the car as "his", and I'd just broken his new toy, the only new toy of that type he'd ever had. I get all that.

So, about a day, maybe two, later, I wreck the car again. Worse damage, but no other cars involved. I was pulled up to the callbox at the gated community where my client lives. After I got buzzed in, I pulled away, and somehow (I still don't know how) ran into this big concrete pillar next to it. It put a dent in the seam where the door meets the front quarter panel. It makes a snapping noise every time we open the driver side door now.

This was bad. Not only was my husband going to kill me (hadn't we JUST had this talk???), but I was starting to see a pattern. Or, more accurately, was no longer able to deny the pattern I'd started to see a while back. Little weird things with this car. Accidents that should never have happened. The energy from it. My unhappiness of losing my old car, which I still think about with regret on a daily basis (although I'm starting to come to grips with it).

The Universe, on the other hand, was conspiring against me that day. (Or for me, more likely, given what happened.) There were several little things that happened, most of which I don't remember, but it ended up with blckwngdorcl getting a ride home without me. And he wasn't answering his phone. I didn't want to tell him about it over the phone, of course, but I was feeling very fragile, and I did want to hear his voice. No go.

I ended up driving home by myself after work, feeling pretty much like shit. I parked in my usual spot, and text messaged him, asking him to come down and talk to me in the car. Strangely enough, he was at the door and heading down immediately. This is unusual for him. He generally takes for-fucking-ever. At any rate, I was grateful.

I told him I broke the car again. And somewhere in there, I lost it. I started sobbing uncontrollably, speaking incoherently. I think this went on for 45 minutes. I really don't have any concept of the time. He held me the whole time and listened to my incoherent screams. I went on about how I didn't mean to break his car, and I was sorry. But moreso, I went on about how this car personified every financial failure I'd ever made in my life. How I'd finally sunk to the lowest low, where I'd regressed to having my father buy me a car again. How I'd gone against all my own principles by getting a new car to begin with. How much that felt like a failure, a betrayal of who I was. How I'd once again, abandoned a car I was extremely attached to, and would likely never see again. How a lot of my personality had been part of that car - the bumper stickers, the license plate, all gone now, and now I had this car that wasn't even technically mine on paper, and that I had to share with him from day one, and that was really his for all practical purposes. How the name of the car made perfect sense now, since is represented my Shadow self as far as finances went, and as far as any self-worth issues I had in relation to them went. How wrecking the car repeatedly was indicative of all that. Likely even akin to the time I beat the shit out of my inner child in a meditation. I probably said some other things. I don't know. The whole thing is kind of a blur. All I know is that every bad thing I had ever felt about myself in the realm of prosperity over the past 4 years (probably longer) came to a head that night, was very present for me. And I sobbed, and screamed, and cried, in a way I do entirely too rarely.

So, any of you who I've tried to tell this story to before, who have tried to explain to me how it was a good move, financially, to make, or that I did the right thing, and how could it be a failure... it's not ABOUT that. Symbolically, it meant SO much more than that. The logic was/is absolutely irrelevant. What matters was how I felt/feel about it.

That was rock bottom for me. That was the turning point, the realization. I still miss my old car. As I said in a previous post, I'm going to hunt it down. Honestly, though, I don't expect to get it back. I'm not even sure it's a good idea. If the guy offers it to me, then sure, it was meant to be. But I think it's more about closure for me. Giving away the bride, so to speak.

But ever since then, it was like a dam broke. I've gotten 3 jobs since then, the most recent, even requiring me to give up one of them. I'm still working at ParaQuad, so I've got 3 possible sources of income, even if some of them are few and far between. I've got a few minor ways to make money on the internet, taking surveys and whatnot. I've found money on the street. Due to a clerical/technological error, I got a free tank of gas. There's always more money in my wallet than I thought there was last time I looked. Ditto quite often for my bank accounts. My utility bills are caught up right now. I'm well on my way to being able to pay for my Core Energetics classes.

It's not perfect, yet. I still have a lot of back bills to pay. Things are still tight. But the energy around it all is different. I know it's going to be OK now. Sure, there are days I still get nervous, and wonder where the money's going to come from, but learning to trust is easier. Granted, I've had external motivators, the Core classes being the major one. If I'm to truly follow my path, I need this training. Even moreso, I need to therapy that's part and parcel of it. (That, by the way, bulwerk, is 1/3 of the cost I mentioned to you... the other 1/3 is blckwngdorcl taking the same therapy, by his own choice. Doing exactly what you said about looking inside, at all the hard stuff. The classes themselves are only $320/month.) Anyway, I was just about willing to whore myself on the streets in order to take these classes, do the work in therapy. And I finally got up off my ass and DID something about it. Yeah, I was killing myself with work recently. I think that's a big part of the energy flow that's going my way now. I was finally willing to do it, no matter what. There are things that I've been told happened during those weeks that I literally don't remember. That's a little scary. But I put in the work, finally, and the Universe has responded with abundance.

I don't intend to coast on this. This is many many years of poor prosperity mindset that I'm fighting. A few good weeks does not a forever rich and prosperous K'La make, obviously. I need to continue to work on it. But it FEELS different. The energy is moving, positive. I intend to keep up with the momentum, and pedal HARD when I need to.