Walking is good for the soul.
With such a busy schedule these days, it seems if I'm not at one event or another, or in the office blasting silly dance music all hours of the night trying desperately to get everything done before deadline, I'm at home, trying to sleep despite the freezing cold temperatures and my refusal to give in to winter and turn on the heat.
There are very few times where things slow down, where there is time to take a breath, look around, and think. Walking slows things down, and that, as I said, is good for the soul.
Or it better be, because my car is dead.
Apparently a connecting rod is essential for the piston to continue operating, and repairing a blown rod is worth more than my beloved car. Who knew? I certainly didn't.
I have to confess that when I turned the key in the ignition and that horrible shriek of metal-on-metal emerged, when the body of my car shook with tremours and terror, I kind of knew it was bad.
That's why, for the record, I burst into tears, hysterically, in the parking lot. Forgive me if you saw that. It wasn't my finest moment.
However, many people have a deep, undying love for their first car, and my love extended to a near-psychic link, so when I turned the key and my car screamed in agony, I knew it was terminal, on some level.
It's been a week since the tragic loss of my car, and I've had a lot of time to think, as I said, while tromping back and forth through the streets of Bonnyville, dragging my camera bag behind me.
I've gone through the stages of grief. I rallied while waiting to hear back from the mechanic and convinced myself it would be fine, it was probably just the starter. That's denial.
There was anger — I believe, at one point, while shaking my fist at the sky, I shouted, “Horses always start in the morning, unless they're dead! Why do we rely on cars, why?”
There was bargaining, but my attempts at that failed miserably when the mechanic chuckled at me and said, “no, seriously. Just get a new car.”
There was depression — was there ever depression. I moped and sulked and wailed at the unfairness of life for a while, and ate a lot of ice cream.
Then there was, finally, acceptance.
My car was dead. My friend was gone. Only a day after I filled up the gas tank and a week after I got an oil change, it was gone. We wouldn't go on any more road trips, we would never spend an afternoon driving to Walmart and back, we would never barrel down the highway at 104 kilometres an hour on the way to Wainwright to visit my family again.
Memories crowded into my mind. This was the car that drove me to my high school prom in Grade 12, and the car that drove my family away when they left me at university in Halifax and returned to Alberta. It was the car that brought me to Bonnyville the first time and got me home again. It was the car I drove alone in for the first time, and the car that, only a few short weeks ago, I drove through the crowded Edmonton streets in for the very first time.
Sure, it's also the car that left me stranded on the side of the road somewhere near Two Hills this summer, and the car that took an hour to get any heat at all last winter, and the car that had a strange habit of allowing one tire to die over night. But we were friends.
And now that friend is gone.
Walking is good for the soul, and I've needed that time to come to terms with the loss of my dear friend.
So goodbye, little car. Thank you for getting me as far as you did, and I know you would have stuck around if you could, but cars don't last forever.
And neither do horses.
