Hand-Me-Down Bikes and Used SUVs
Photo by Morgan McDonald on Unsplash
Two weeks ago, I walked into a dealership and bought a "new" car. (I mean, SUV, right? Or is "car" a category that rises above sedans, interchangeable with "vehicle"? This is a conundrum I've stalled out in this last week. Nevertheless, I digress...)
That's not exactly how it went. In reality, I walked into many dealerships and test-drove several versions of the same vehicle. Several friends provided guidance, emotional support, and took the coffee away before I added a caffeine crash to my adrenaline crash. It involved stressful haggling over the price, grace in the form of an advocate in the financing department, and when it was all said and done, driving out of the parking lot in the dark with the one key (without a key fob) that came with my 2014 red Nissan Xterra.
For the first week, I drove to and from work feeling like I did as a kid when I outgrew my bike and my parents made me transition to my sister's hand-me-down bike. It was a bit too big (or so it felt), and I only agreed to make the change after a bike accident in which I hit a rock and flipped over the too-small handlebars and onto the pavement, scraping all of the skin off my upper lip in the process.
Clearly, I need to improve my ability to let go and embrace new things before I outgrow the old to the point of causing accidents...
The funny thing is that my Xterra isn't actually much bigger than my Sentra. It's one inch shorter and two inches wider. It is taller, though. The V6 under the hood vrooms when I accelerate, the trailer hitch and roof racks are begging to be loaded, and the the 4WD knob is not for looks. Hence, I felt strange driving it through the city to and from work at the office all week long. This vehicle doesn't belong on a city commute.
Friday morning, everything changed, though. I picked up a friend and we settled her friendly sweater-wearing pitbull in the roomy trunk, heading up I-75 to "the property": a 700 acre piece of land owned by friends of ours who pay us to help build cabins, and clean up logging debris with large pieces of machinery. It felt right to drive along the rural TN highway, but the moment I pulled off the pavement and through the gate it all made sense. When I shifted into 4WD, passed the place I used to park my car, and plunged through the creek, I said, "THIS is why I wanted an Xterra!!"
As we jostled past the snow-dusted meadow, through the creek a second time, and pulled up next to the RV, I took it all in. The meadow was still covered with a few inches of snow and the dirt road passing beneath us was more frozen than muddy.
When I got out to greet Dave, I was no longer the little girl riding the too-big-hand-me-down bike. I was the adventure-woman driving her adventure-mobile.
It was all wonderful until the adventure-woman locked her one key inside the adventure-mobile half an hour before we were planning to leave. After driving a car that didn't allow me to lock my keys in the car for seven years, I knew it would happen sooner or later but was hoping I would have a chance to obtain a spare key before that fateful event took place. All things considered, it could have been far worse. Rose had AAA, so she stood on a rock near the gatehouse and was able to get enough cell phone reception to make the call. We changed a few parts of the plan, no one was angry with me for the delay, and a few hours later we were on the road back to Knoxville.
Remembering how my college roommates and I named my Sentra on a mini-road trip seven years ago, I was hoping Rose and I might discover my new vehicle's name while on the drive to the property. I had "tried on" a few names throughout the first week, but nothing had seemed quite right. Rose gave a few suggestions, but our journey drew to a close before we settled on just the right name.
I know, I know, most people would say, "Why must it have a name?" The simple answer is this: I want to give a name to this season. It is part of how I embrace it. I named the Sentra "Charlee" because someone said it meant "to be free" and that fit the season of life I was in. Now that I've moved on from Charlee, I want to name the Xterra as I embrace this season of adventuring, of learning to live again.
I'm confident I will come across the right name in time. Who knows? Perhaps the waiting and the searching is part of the embracing. It's much easier to embrace a season one can name; few learn the ability to embrace the unnameable.
What about you, dear friend? Do you have a name for this season or this year? Are you learning to lean into the misted-over, blurry undefinable?