I guess a lot of people search for varying levels of fulfillment in a number of different things. Of course, we reach ultimate fulfillment with our relationship with Christ – but on down the totem pole, people have found different things that either fill, or depending on how you look at it, create, a void. History has shown that many people find a sense of crowning contentment in their children. Others, in their career. I, however, have been lucky enough to find my “i-ching” quite early on in my life. My life is complete, because I have my dream car.
It all started adding up a couple of months ago. In entering my senior year as a college student here at the illustrious Harding University, I had a pretty good idea of what employment field I had the desire to go into. I had found the love of my life, and was finally living with a roommate that I didn’t want to strangle/didn’t want to strangle me. Everything was lining up nicely. But the flowing order of my life would be consistently interrupted when I would have to do little things, such as, go to Wal-Mart. Go out for lunch. Go antiquing. And the worst of all – take that grueling, hour-long trip to Little Rock. Oh, how that winding highway seemed to stretch on for days as I sat in my 1995 Buick LeSabre, dripping with sweat (no A/C) and furiously fidgeting with my fickle radio, which seemingly only picked up the station FUZZ, “Serving you with scratch and static, all day long.” Picking out my eyesore of a vehicle in an enormous parking lot was no difficult task – that was the one upside of having an blue-green car splotched with gray where the paint had peeled back. This eyesore was making me heartsore – something had to be done.
My gracious mother and stepfather, who bestowed this gem of a vehicle upon me at the age of sixteen, held my hope for better days aloft with the promise of a graduation present that had four wheels and wasn’t the color of the stuff that a dairy farmer mucks off of the bottom of his shoe. In anticipation of this gift, I rolled down my windows in the ninety degree weather and pulled up unnaturally close to other cars that had their music going at stop lights. However, upon my darling mother’s visit to Harding during Parent Weekend, she was priveleged enough to get to ride in “The Buee (byoo-ee),” as we all affectionately call it. After one weekend of receiving the Buee Treatment, mother decided that the graduation present was all of the sudden going to be a Christmas gift, and I was free to go car shopping as soon as possible.
Now, I feel I must pause here to give my dear old car the credit it’s actually due. Although there were times that I wanted to drive that green machine off of a cliff due to the fact that it was beeping (loudly and incessantly) for no reason, my dear car and I were not without our good times. Buee’s boatlike-structure provided so that my car was always stretching much further before and behind me than it needed to, protecting me in my little driver’s seat from any harm I might unknowingly inflict upon myself. Its velvety seats always warmed me on cold winter days. And it was the beloved car that was crammed so full of my belongings that it almost scraped the road as mom and I put-putted it all the way to Harding for my second year of college. Needless to say, your first car always holds a special place your heart. And so does your second one. Ergo.
As I mentioned before, the rest of my life has been going swimmingly. Upon the approach of Sam and I’s one year anniversary this past weekend, I was scrambling for a gift that would be valuable and meaningful, preparing for pre-Thanksgiving exams, mapping out a schedule for next semester, and playing as much Mario Kart as possible. Turns out I didn’t find a gift in time and two of my exams were cancelled. However, other plans were in the works for my life that I wasn’t coordinating. Gears were grinding to bring me closer to my dream.
It was almost as though my car picked my mother out. There my little Prius sat, on a hot Arizona November morning, amidst a vast lot of other motor vehicles, waiting to be bought. But I, my Prius said, am the perfect shade of grey. I have tinted windows and a power start button. I have everything your daughter wants, and I am priced o-so-nicely. And before mom knew it, she was driving it home.
In what my dad called a “whirlwind of a trip,” Sam and I flew home to Phoenix this past weekend to pick up my new little possession. In the nine hours we spent near the west coast, we ate and drank and laughed with my family just enough to make my heart nearly break as we drove away.
As I sit here in my bed at such an ungodly hour in the morning, I am still glowing from the remnants of the weekend. As the heading reads, my life is, indeed, complete. I have poignant images of my family’s smiling faces, shouting wishes of good luck and safety as I pull out of the driveway in my wonderful car with Sam sitting in the seat beside me. As far as my step-dad, however, the last thing I heard from him was “Well get out of here, you were supposed to leave an hour ago!”
Although we arrived in Searcy at 11:30, you could’ve found me sitting in my parked car just three minutes before curfew, still marveling at the myriad of buttons, most of which I have no idea what they are for. In reluctance, however, I caressed my Prius one last time and went upstairs, my arms filled with empty bottles and a box of cold pizza that were the last souvenirs of Sam and I’s trip across the country. So we got 470 miles on one tank. So we got pulled over for not having tags. The part of the trip that was so wonderful to me was sliding into that driver’s seat, looking over at Sam, and it all coming together.
(insert cheesy saxophone music here)
