A Reliable Vehicle

I drive a 2013 Buick Enclave. This is an incredibly fancy and reliable vehicle in my opinion. It has heated seats, it has a backup camera. It is getting older and it is being paid off at a higher interest rate and over a longer term than I would like, but it is a luxury and one I never take for granted. Would I have been happier with a less fancy but equally reliable vehicle? Yes, I most definitely would have been. But my husband surprised me with a trade in 6 years ago and I have been gratefully driving it ever since.

We did not always have a car growing up, and when we did, it was not always reliable. I renewed my licence today (I still hadn't updated it from our move in September....and it was expired since my birthday last month....very bad i know). and so I have been reflecting on what it was like for us getting around when I was a kid.

When my parents were together (ages 0-5) they had a light blue minivan. This thing has become like folklore in our house because of the many issues it had....the most memorable of which was the time it caught on fire in the middle of the highway outside Calgary. My dad was driving with me and two of my brothers. He pulled over to check underneath the car as he had been having a bit of trouble and yelled "get out of the van!!!" Little did we know that this would be one of the best vehicles we would have.

My mother didn't drive her own vehicle until I was 10. We lived in Calgary at the time, and fortunately there was no shortage of public transport options. But it did mean that we would wake up early...around 4:30 am to get ready, out the door, and onto a bus, transfer, get to the babysitters, from where we would walk to school on our own. The car we ultimately got was acquired by us through a trade - a tv for the car. We called it Bob. From what I remember, it was similar to the car that Wayne has in Wayne's world, but had a door and fender from different beater cars as well. It didn't last long, but it sure cut down our commute while it lasted.

We ended up somehow getting an incredible, newer (maybe even brand new?) car - a blue Ford Topaz! Now that was luxury. A massive upgrade from Bob and significantly more comfortable. To start with, it had four doors (all originals)! Unfortunately about a year later the car was totaled... the details of which have always been really murky. And so we were back to a junker...an old Chevelle, then carless again for awhile, a beat up old trans am with t top roofs, a 1989 mustang that broke down in the middle of a road coming into town...thank goodness for the kind man who took pity on us and dropped us kids off at school that day.

Throughout all these transitions, most of which were very short term, I didn't get my licence. Part of it was likely my embarrassment, or fear that the car wouldn't even qualify for or make it through the road test. Looking back I think that the crappy cars were a symbol for our living situation, and I was ashamed. Ashamed that we didn't have much, ashamed that for as many cars as we had, there were many more men in and out of our house. And that shame made me feel compelled to hide a lot of my life. I think that is part of why I have become such an open book. And it is definitely why I am so grateful for all I have now, and all I am able to give to my family.

To me, the reliable car, the beautiful home, the clothes, the full pantry, these are not realities I had growing up. My clothes were rarely new, often from people whom I had never met. My room was typically shared and constantly changing. I would move schools so often that I would only ever know people on a superficial level. I don't say this to complain about all I didn't have. Even with very little I can still acknowledge I had many privileges (the closest we ever got to homeless was staying in a women's shelter or crashing with family and always for a month or so max, I always ate, even if nutrition was lacking, none of those men ever abused me). I say it because having so little gave me so much.

A perspective of gratitude. An open heart. A desire to know people deeply and show them how much I care. The knowledge that things are just things....that I can appreciate the comfort but be okay without too. The ability to own the embarrassing parts of myself. The belief that things will get better and that life is long. The deep appreciation for what life has given me. Far beyond the material. That sometimes things can feel so painful but that time will help heal, and maybe even help me find the humor in that pain. That cycles can be broken, and the empowerment that can come out of that.

It is so interesting...how an unreliable car can end up becoming the vehicle to a better life and a healthy perspective.

Amanda