Today saw a sad chore that I've been putting off for a while. It was time to clear out my old car, before driving it back to my parents for one last time before we're parted.
I say "clear out my old car". For most people this would involve moving a couple of CDs from one car to the other, and perhaps moving across a map or some de-icer. Not me. I will freely admit that tidiness isn't one of my key strengths. Add to this the fact that I've had the car since I was 18, and it often served as an extended bedroom when I was at university, and you might be able to imagine the extent of detritus.
There was a lot of detritus. Old petrol receipts (never sure why they give those to you - they're separate from VAT receipts, and I've never yet returned a tank of petrol. "Sorry - it was an unwanted gift..."), flyers that had been put on my windscreen, bottles of ancient water at varying levels of emptiness... A lot of detritus.
But there was also a lot of other stuff. I'm trying to be all grown-up and unsentimental, and have indeed thrown most of it away, but amongst other things there were wedding invitations, maps to the houses of people I don't see anymore - ex-colleagues, ex-boyfriends, friends who have faded away. Some directions to a place near Naseby that I don't even remember visiting. There were mix-tapes from exes - despite the fact that I've not had a cassette player in the car for about four years. There were catalogues and samples from when I used to work in sales. I even found the 1998 catalogue down the back of the rear seats, along with some of my old business cards.
The car and I, we've travelled a long way together. According to old directions found this afternoon, we've been as far north as Bridlington, as far south as Chichester, as far east as Norwich, and as far west as Cardiff. We've been to weddings together (thankfully no funerals). The car took me to university for the first time... and more importantly, it took me away again three years later.
In those first few weeks at uni, it saw me a few times come just to sit in it, and breathe in its smell of newly-lost independence.
It drove me to my first flat in London. And my second. And my third.
It has seen me laugh so hard that I've nearly steered it into a lamp-post. It has seen me cry so much that, unthinking, I turned on the windscreen wipers - to clear my view. It has seen me turn from a shy 18 year-old to an aspiring stand-up comic in her late twenties.
I will miss my car. I like to think it will miss me too.
3 comments:
You're supposed to make me LAUGH, not cry! Enough of these sentimental comedy Xmas specials, I say.
Good bye Laura's Astra, you served her well. (Better than I expected anyway...). Happy Retirement.
'Newly-lost independence' -wow! And putting on the windscreen wipers!
Very moving plog Laura.
RSN
WEll Laura, i think you understated the detritus
here speaks the inheriter of the car. brother Jack.
I'm starting to get the feeling i got the wooden spoon of the deal here. Laura has all these memories of blah blah blah in my car for the last 8 years and i get it for 3 months, with moss thrown in for free.
The first thing i did was clean this car. This meant getting 8 years of matted hair out the carpet and leaves that had been here since the days of Bristol.
Then it came to cleaning it. only a pressure washer could cope.
When i rang Laura that evening and told her i pressure washed the moss out the window frame her first response was 'you didn't get rid of the moss did you, ow....'
Have you no dignity Laura?
Ps nice car
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