Let go… if you can…

My beloved car, a 2009 Audi I’d driven for the past 10 years is broken beyond fixing. By that I mean fixing it would cost more than the car’s worth. And my heart is broken. I loved that car from the day I sat in it when we were trying cars in various dealerships. Over the years it has comforted me with the seat warmers, the CD player (my son tells me to get the CDs, all his childhood memories dating preschool years are there), the back seats that carried my son’s car seat at the beginning, the cable connecter I later got to have my phone music play. I loved how the seat and the driving wheel were proportioned. I loved how I always felt as soon as I sat in that seat, it was home, except for the times when the engine light was on, I was nervous then. But that driver seat, the music and the drives have consoled me through grief, accompanied my joy and always drove me home. I always felt found once I sat in that seat, and once my music was on, I’d be on top of the world driving, cooped up in my own space…

And now I grieve the loss of it, not just the navy 2009 Audi but one of the places I felt belonging. Even with the door lock (replaced once or twice) not working, the nonworking front mirror and the list of repairs on the horizon (ironically this latest one wasn’t on that list) I belonged in that space…

I wonder if I did right by it. I should have taken better care of it I say to myself. I weep. I might also be going through other grief, past regrets, the times how I found console in that driver seat… At the same time I know it is time to let it go. That doesn’t stop the tears from falling. By letting it go, I’m also letting an old friend go, I’m also letting an old version of myself go and how I want to hold on to them!

Still, something in me softly, insistently continues to whisper; let go… let go… I know sooner or later I will. I have been trying to let go of emotions that have a hold on me, thoughts that don’t make sense, a past that only exist in memory. I have been trying to let go so that I can come back to the present, so that I can be awake to what is. Now. 

Even though it was coming, and we long had known it was time to replace it, I find myself unprepared for this end. Letting it go means I’m saying goodbye to my mid 30s to mid 40s, when I was strong with a bright future, and many prospects in life, but more importantly my father was alive in those days… Life feels different now. Maybe it’s the covid days, though I have to say we made some sweet memories during this time too. Maybe I’m coming to terms with turning 48 very soon… or maybe this in a way is coming to terms with change that never stops if you’re hung up in the past. But now is the real deal you see. Now is what happens, not the past ten years, or this morning, or an hour ago, not even a few minutes ago… 

I may not get to drive my beloved car again, still I prefer to be awake to now, even with this excruciating grief…

And when I meet you I hope I’m in the now, open to who is before my eyes and who I am before you, and the joy that surrounds us always (well the gurus reassure that joy, though now here is pretty gloomy)…

Photo by @filozofish