Moving and Change

I am probably insane.

I bought my Volvo in 1988 new and it has been by far my favorite car. I figured it might be my last car and was working on it. But the last couple of years smog certificates were getting harder to pass, and the State kept making offers to retire the car. But it has been doing well lately, and the car was born to drive country roads. But in the last couple of weeks I have been getting an intermittent, nasty screech which has been increasingly accompanied by steering problems. Then cash for clunkers temptation (which I found my Volvo couldn't qualify for -- gas mileage was too good!?!). More screeching and one day I asked "should I replace my car"? Two seconds later, as I tried to unlock my door, the handle fell apart in my hand (and what is worse, inside the door.) Another couple of days hemming and hawing, looking and fretting, and getting the the car through the back seat. So Thursday, on the way back from our clergy cluster, I drove around looking at all the cars in Eureka and finally bought a brand new little Subaru Impreza Outback Sport, Subaru's answer to the Toyota Yaris, not the bigger Subaru Outback. .

I know as a guy I am suppose to feel happy about buying a new car, suppose to swoon at "new car smell". But, really it stinks of chemicals. And I am grieving a very old mechanical friend. I feel like I did when our cat, Pumpkin, died shortly after moving to Morgan Hill, couldn't make the move, just as my Volvo couldn't. I am sure I will get to like this little thing after a while, it is very easy to drive. But right now, after driving a Volvo for twenty years, it feels like I am driving around in a lunch box. For now it is just another friend lost in the shuffle.

Picture found at http://www.autospies.com/images/users/Casey54/ImprezaOUTBACK.jpg