Outright Mine: why this old beat up car will survive these trips

     A while ago-- so, last week-- I was asked why Dani is so important to me. I was going on a tirade about how I would take on a third job, a fourth job; I would eat coffee beans, snort ground coffee, start taking provigil, sleep one hour, if it meant Dani wouldn't die on me. When I die, what am I going to remember? The hours I spent working and her longevity, or the way I gave up and let her die because I was too lazy to work?

    The last sentence always makes me tear up.

    The truth is, when I took a breath in my tirade and the person sitting next to me asked that question, it felt like my entire body stopped, and suddenly the only function working was the ability to produce tears. I had to blink them furiously back, squeeze my eyes shut and clench my hands until the tears dried up where they were. 

    I wasn't sure why I wanted to sob so hard and so immediately. The answer seemed fairly easy to me, but would be entirely too close to everything I'm not sure I wanted to share at that time. Unless, of course, I'm oversharing online. This is different.

    Here's the truth about why I would kill myself for this car. Why I have spent so much money on this old beater car when I could have taken the same amount and bought myself a newer car.

    Fair warning that this is about to turn into some kind of sick therapy session, so you can skip this whole post if you want. 

    My mom used possessions as a weapon. She used a lot of things as a weapon, actually. Her favorite physical weapon was a wooden spoon. Her favorite emotional weapon was taking things. Gifts she had given, gifts someone else gave us, things we had bought for ourselves-- all of it was hers if you left it in the wrong spot. Privacy was violated and nothing was mine. The only privacy I ever had was in the shower, and even that was regulated: fifteen minutes and she had the key to the door.

    Until Dani, everything I had was something someone else had, in some way, helped me with. The roof over my head? Impossible without my sister. 

    My therapist says that I learned extreme independence and an uncomfortably tight emotional armor from my childhood. What that means is I walked to work most days in high school, every day in college, and I took a two hour bus ride each way to my current day job before I got Dani. I woke up at 4:30am because the bus left at 5:14am, and I had my second job. So however bad you think my schedule of 7am-11:30pm is... it used to be 4:30am to 11:30pm. It means I avoided people as a romantic prospect, and friends were made with wild abandon until I started self-sabotaging those.

    So anyone, at any time, could come to me and say, "I had a hand in this. This is my claim on your thing. Mine." and I would not be able to refute it. They did help. Where was my argument? Where was my leg to stand on? Those were my thoughts when my mom would say I owed her because she never charged me rent or food or anything, even after I got my jobs, never mind that she often asked to borrow money and called me selfish if I refused. To the point where I started lying about my paycheck amounts.

    Then I bought Dani, and my perspective on Stuff changed.

    Something was outright mine. $1800, 230k miles, but she was mine. No one could come to me and say, "Hey, I helped pay for that," or tell me that I owed them any part of her. I was free to take her anywhere anytime, and I didn't have to ask anyone. I didn't have to tell them where I was going. 

    A long time ago, an ex-friend told me her mom admired me because I do everything myself. While I still take pride in that statement, mostly it sounds exhausting. I am exhausted, so where is my leg to stand on? I am so tired I could fall asleep standing up, and have. I am so tired that it is all I can do to keep going. Every day is a struggle to keep going. One thing goes wrong, and then another, then another, and I can't help myself anymore because my emotions are wrought, my mental health is in the toilet, and I make mistake after mistake. 

    Dani is similar. She's very beaten up, the outer equivalent of my inner. She's old, and used. People admire that she's still chugging along, but she's exhausted. Has anyone cared about her? Some days are a struggle for her too, and she never fails. If she gets so tired she must lose strength, she makes sure it is in the best possible place: a comfy bed for me, and Ventura, CA for her. The best possible places for both of us to fail and reset. 

    I know why that question made me want to sob. Dani is the first purchase that is forever mine, for as long as we'll have each other. I know a lot of people expect her to fail forever on a day that is sooner rather than later. I want to prove them wrong. I know she does too.

    But I didn't want to cry in front of that person, so I beat the tears back until I slid in the driver's seat again and let them out. 

    Dani never judges me for my outbursts. I can scream and cry and calm down in the span of twenty minutes, and Dani is quiet. Lets me turn the radio on as loud as I need to. Dani doesn't spill my secrets, and I keep hers. Dani is privy to my most vulnerable moments, because I can't trust that no one will hear me cry unless I'm in her. I can be insane and then fine, and I never have to apologize because she is just quietly sitting with me until I can breathe again.

    She is the first thing that has ever been mine, solely. Tomato was the next thing that was mine. That's why we are a package deal, a trio never separated. Dani is the car version of me, and Tomato is the cat version of me. We are one and the same.

    I cry when I think about that question. Of the sincere and quiet way it was asked. Of the way I beat back the strongest urge to cry. Of the way I immediately deflected once I could open my eyes, and the person was kind enough to follow the subject change without pointing it out, which he really likes to do. 

    I cry because I love her. That's why she's so important. I love her. I look at my car, and I don't see a money pit. I see something I love, that I want to treat well, that I want to stay with me for a long time. I look at her, I look at my stupid cat, and I realize I've finally got unconditional love figured out.

    This sounds very My Strange Addiction, or whatever the show was where the guy married his car, but mine just taught me a lot about myself and the emotional stuff I was still missing even after "growing up". See, before Dani, I loved my sister a lot. Really, I still do. But I would be furious at her, and I would hate her sometimes, and I would just really not like her, and to me, that felt like I was still totally fickle with love. That my unconditional love switch was broken, and I wasn't capable of it. I'm not saying you can't be mad at someone you unconditionally love, just that my default setting for everything was to be mad, and it didn't feel like love to me at all.

    When I was in Parra's Auto Repair, my uncle asked me if I was sure my car was worth it. It's kind of a synonymous question, no? Both relate to my car's worth. At the time, I just blankly looked at my uncle, not quite comprehending the question. Of course she was worth it. Was he crazy? 

    Later, I wouldn't be able to look at someone who asked why she was worth it. Explaining all of this... Was I crazy?

    When I think of my car, all I remember is the fierce pride I have that I have bought her, fixed her, maintained her all alone. I don't think about each time I had to pay off my credit card or deplete my checking account. I think about how she's still running, eleven thousand miles and a year later.

    It boils down to this: I love her. And I would still take out a third or fourth job if she needed it. I would do whatever it takes. Dani and I are going to travel the country together, whether people want me to give her up or not.