Happy Car Sad Car

Happy car: sad car.
Well car: sick car.

I figured out what has been bugging me about buying the new car and giving up my old one.  It is another loss to CFS/ME.  My old car represented freedom.  I traveled to work.  I drove to Toastmasters meetings and contests and conferences all over the state.  I drove to garden club meetings and garden parties.  I loaded up gardening club members and we filled the trunk with plants and soil and rocks for our gardens. I drove to college reunions and to the airport.  I drove to Lake Placid several times by myself to spend a week figure skating with my Mom.  We went on family vacations all over New England in it.  I drove to figure skating practice, ice shows and tests.  I drove to the gym and to restaurants.  It was my well car.  My gateway to freedom to roam this planet as I wished.  I have lots of happy memories in that car.  I taught my son to drive in that car.

My new car is gorgeous.  However, I keep crying when I think of leaving my old car at the dealership never to be seen again.  My new car is my sick car.  The one that I had to fit my wheelchair in instead of my gardening supplies and figure skates.  The new car had to fit all three drivers so that I can have my family chauffeur me around because I can't drive myself most days.  The new car had to have a soft ride so that it didn't aggravate my neuro symptoms and leave me unable to walk or talk after a road trip.  The new car had to have easy steering so I can turn the wheel with little effort so that on the odd occasion I do drive it isn't physically tiring for me.  My new car is my sick car.  The one I was forced to buy because of the circumstances forced upon me by CFS/ME.  My life is becoming circumscribed by my illness and I don't like no matter how pretty my new car is.

So while I like my new car and admire its engineering, I also hate it.  Nah...  Hate is too strong a word; maybe dislike is better.  I dislike my new car.  It is shiny and new and pretty and smooth and big but I miss my old car even though it was broken.  I miss it even though the power steering would cut out mid turn and a string of obscenity would fly out of my son.  I miss it even though the passenger seat is stained from spilled milk shakes and coffees.  I miss it even though the rear seats are stained from the wet butts of my kid's BB rifle team after playing in the rain.  I miss it even though it is scratched and pitted and dented.  However, I know where each of those scratches and dents came from: my son scraping ice off my hood with a broom; me trying to squeeze down a too narrow road and having a bush scrape the length of my car; the little dent in the bumper from the lady rear ending me when I was sitting at a stop light on my way to work and she was on her cell phone.  These are the memories of freedom.  Memories of my life before CFS/ME.  My well car.  My happy car.

Eventually my new car might become my happy car.  We'll go on family trips and spill crap in the seats and dent it and ding it.  New memories will be made.  At this juncture I'm dubious.  I don't know which way things will go.  Happy or sad.  So right now; right this minute; it is my sad car: my sick car.  Hopefully that will change.