I Sold My Car But Not My Dream
I sold m
y car last week. My shiny red Dodge Challenger that showed up when I quit my job.
After I quit, I drove this car down Washington State and across the corners of Oregon and Idaho, and all the way down Utah where I volunteered at the Best Friends Animal Society in Kanab for a few days. Then I drove up through Bryce Canyon and into Colorado to spend a magical month as a writing student in Boulder. When the month was over, I drove up through Wyoming and across Montana and Idaho, back to my home in Washington.
Each day when I got in my car for the next leg of my road trip, I started a playlist that I made for the journey. The first song was the theme from The Dukes of Hazard. “Straightenin’ the curves/ Flatnin’ the hills”….and neither the mountain nor the law got me in that car…not a single ticket or scrape. That car was with me on the best adventure of my life.
The Challenger symbolized the freedom and empowerment I felt when I quit my corporate job. It represented doing what I wanted to do, not what anyone else thought I should do. It was about making a choice not because it was practical but because it added fun and excitement to my life.
In the book I’m writing, I do not recommend quitting your job and then buying a new car! But I had enough savings to afford it and it was an acknowledgement of the confidence I felt. I believed in myself enough to quit my regular paycheck and go out on my own, knowing that I would be fine. My attitude was about saying yes to the possibilities.
It was so much fun to drive the Challenger on freeways and the open roads across the West. It was les
s fun to drive in the cramped streets of Seattle, or to navigate around tight corners in parking garages. Challengers are wide cars with long hoods. This car didn’t fit in my garage at home and stayed in the driveway.
In the summer and fall it was still more fun than frustrating. My schedule was wide open and I didn’t drive anywhere on most days. When I did, I could take extra time to find parking spots. Then I started a new consulting gig in January and suddenly needed to be at an office most mornings.
With the winter weather, I had to defrost the car to drive it to the office while my all wheel drive Subaru with its heated seats and rear windshield wipers was blocked behind it in the garage. I kept the Subaru when I bought the Challenger, expecting that it was going to be temporary. I didn’t like owning two cars; it clashed with my values of living more simply and with less consumption.
When the downsides outweighed the positive, I went to the AutoTrader website to evaluate how much the car was worth and found an option to get a price quote from local dealers who buy used cars. I plugged in the details and got an offer that was $900 less than what I purchased the car for back in June. I could take it to the dealership and skip the hassle of placing an ad, meeting people for test drives, and negotiating. It was so simple that I took it as a sign that it was time to let the Challenger go.
Last week I said good
bye to the car. I felt like I was taking a beloved pet to find a new home. I had to remind myself that my best memories were from driving the car out to Boulder and back this summer, and that the car was a symbol of living more purposefully. It wasn’t actually freedom itself. I can still make empowering choices that make my life bigger and better.
That car represented leaving old crap behind to start a new life, and doing something that was impractical but fun and just for me. I’m so glad I had that experience. And I’m glad I realize I don’t have to keep the car to continue to leave old crap behind, start new adventures, and do things just because they make life more fun.
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