Overwhelmed

This past week was a cold one. The first part of the week we had days where the temperature literally did good to get to 14. My poor 17 year-old car didn't like this. To be specific the transmission didn't like it. On Thursday, January 13 she finally gave up the ghost, or whatever it is cars give up.

Jason has been telling me to figure out what type of car I want for that day when I need to get a new one, for months, more than a year perhaps. I have some money saved for a car. I picked out several that I liked, but it wasn't until recently that I realized that the kind I want and what I can afford with what I have saved don't match, not even a little bit. We checked around in cities outside the Springfield radius, within Springfield the prices are high, absurdly so. But I still haven't saved enough.

My lovely Toyota Camry wagon has been good to me. My sister had her before me. I've had her for almost 7 years. The longest I've had any car. I slept in that car, more than once. That car was a safe place when I didn't think I had one more times than I can count. I didn't realize how attached I was until this week. It's just a car. But it isn't. There are memories attached to that car -- I was driving that car when Abby called to tell me that Grammy had died. I drove away from bad times in that car. There are a lot of good and bad memories. That car was my independence for so long.

I named her, my sis had named her Draco, but she hadn't read Harry Potter. It was from the movie Dragonsomething and just means dragon. So I renamed her Lady Jane Dragonfly. Naming cars is something our friend Helen taught us and I am likely never going to stop doing it. I am unashamedly sentimental about a myriad of things only some of which make any kind of "sense".

Jason's parents made us an offer which I cannot refuse. I am so grateful to them. We had gone to a few car places. We had actually talked with a car salesman and I sat inside a new car. The whole thing was pretty stressful for me. I has thought that I would be giving Lady Jane to a friend of mine and picking out the car I wanted, or something very close to it. I didn't think she would just be dead and too far gone to warrant the money to fix. So when Joe and Linda offered for us to basically buy Linda's car for a song, the relief I felt was immense. No, a Buick isn't on the list of cars I want, but this car is in good condition, has only had two owners and we know them both. This car will be a dependable ride for a few years and in that time I can save up enough to get the car I want without the stress of being forced into a decision I don't want to make in the first place.

And now I will tell you that, while this is the most prominently stressful thing which has happened this week, it isn't the only stressful thing, or even the most overall stressful thing of the past week. Life is full of challenges; my life is full of people helping me meet those challenges. I am so blessed. I am so grateful.