consolation prize

Lately when I've been driving around I've been having these lapses, tiny moments when I realize or remember that in one or more months I will not have this car anymore. During these lapses, I am met with a sudden overwhelming feeling of sadness and think, this must be what it's like to have a loved one diagnosed with a terminal illness, and with the knowledge of that imminent end, comes only grief. My car, whom I've dubbed Rita roughly only one year ago, late in the stage of her now 18 year life, has been one of a few things that has been a consistent part of my life for the past seven years. Through my awkward second half of high school and all throughout college, she's been with me, passing every checkpoint, arriving at each destination. And now on her last leg, I can't help but feel sentimental.

I feel a little betrayed that this state's strict smog regulations have deemed a perfectly running car unsuitable to be driven on its gray bleak highways and winding roads pressed against the crashing waves and orange and purple skies of the California sunset. Long gone are the days when I took those countless trips testing the stability of her handling through the perilous twists of Highway 17, or the fortitude of her transmission in those 500 plus mile rides, moving back and forth from Nor to So Cal. I'm a little bitter knowing that even though this arbitration is intended for the greater ecological good, for myself as the individual, it's such a big waste. And I feel hopeless in wanting to reach 200,000 miles before I let her go, as of now 6,000 miles short of that goal, but knowing full well that given the short time allotted by the DMV's registration extension, and the uncertainty that comes with the reliability of her old engine, this dying dream won't come to fruition.

A lot of it boils down to practicalities. There will be no time for mourning when I fill out the applications to voluntarily "retire my vehicle" through an aptly named program run by the state government, suffering through pedantic issues involving eligibilities, title holdings, and whatever else. Depending on what happens may lead to a number of different outcomes, none of which I feel would really be ideal, because knowing me, I'm just going to want to get through with it all as quickly and painlessly as possible. And suddenly, my short-term future is met with a lot of uncertainty. How will I commute to work? How will I commute to tutor? Will I still be able to tutor? God knows probably won't want to. Hell, I don't want to now. Somehow though, I'll find a way.

And this is what it's like to be in purgatory. These are the years I should be embracing as the last big race of my youth as I make my transition into adulthood. But unsurprisingly, I'm failing pretty miserably at that. Or at least it only feels that way with all these months that lay wasted behind me. And I think it's funny that a few others might envy me in my position. How could they? I don't make money. I don't do what I love. I don't do much of anything, really. Just sit around and wait. If anything, I'm the one looking enviously at those around me. But for a select few, that envy is accompanied with concern.

Sometimes it takes almost losing your hand to finally learn not to keep putting it over the fire. I just wish others would take heed and realize that they need to change their destructive patterns, reprogram their habits, before something drastic and irreversible occurs. In that sense, my friend was very lucky. Most of us are, really, without even realizing it. Even me, of all people. But as each day passes, I find myself caring less and less. I'm seeking comfort in the hopelessness of it all and the futility of our dreams as human beings. It comes down to inductive reasoning, really. If it hasn't happened yet for you, what makes you think it ever will, in all the years you've spent on this fucking earth, wishing and waiting? But then that's when you just have to buckle down and work through it, wade through all that shitty despair, even if there are no guarantees you'll make it through the other end happier or better in any way. You'll be glad at least to have tried.