The enormity of our plans sunk in on Friday when we dropped Russ’s car at the dealership.  We had sold both cars once we realized that the cost of storing and insuring them for the year didn’t make much sense.  As we left the lot I looked at Russ and said “Wow, we’re really cutting strings.”  Without missing a beat, Carter quipped “I sure hope the ‘chute opens!”  We all giggled, giddy with that footloose sense of adventure and, I think, a little nervous at how truly committed we were.

Four days later, the day before we left, we returned to the dealership to drop my car (you can’t survive in suburbia without at least one vehicle, even for four days).  The transaction was quick and efficient.  As I watched them remove the plates I felt an unexpected wave of emotions.  I was thrilled to be embarking upon the adventure; it was my dream.  But there was something else and it was bittersweet. It was not quite a sense of loss, but a recognition that I was leaving behind a marker of the most important chapter of my life to date.  

 I remembered entering the dealership more than a decade before, pointing, and saying “I’ll take that one.”  It was the first—and only—car I’d ever purchased on my own.  I was so proud.  I vividly recalled how the new-leather smell had made me nauseous when I was pregnant with Katherine and I’d had to drive with the windows down for weeks.  The tiny infant mirror which I’d hung from the rear-view was where I had quite literally watched my infant and toddler grow.  How quickly the view had changed from safety seats and sippy cups to soccer cleats and comics.  As I walked away I spotted the parking stickers I never could get off the back window:  Lambert’s Cove where we vacationed with babies and dear friends; Farm Pond where my pre-schoolers had learned to swim, and the “DRIVE NOW, TXT L8R” window cling that Carter’s middle school engineering team had so brilliantly labored to create.

It occurred to me that my well-worn RX—300 was a companion that had served our family long and well.  It had faithfully delivered us to far-away friends on annual road trips, found countless soccer fields scattered across Metro-West, brought us to the hospital when Katherine was born, and raced us back there four years later when she needed stitches.  I had counted on it they way you count on your oldest friend,  taking it’s dependability for granted and never once questioning that it would help me get to where I needed to go.

133,426 miles in that car had brought me here, to the start of something new and big, with many miles more ahead.