#tagged as unhinged sentimentalism and reflections on the swiftness and fragility of time lol

[sigmalied]

Eulogy for my Blue 2008 Honda Civic

To the car I drove for my entire adult life up until this point, from the summer I graduated high school to the days leading up to my 30th birthday:

You’re not dead, not yet. But you’re dying and you’re not mine anymore, which hurts almost just as much. I bought a new car. Not because I didn’t love you anymore, but because I loved you to pieces; worked you hard and far into the retirement digits of your odometer.

I hope I took good care of you. Regular maintenance, timely oil changes, and preemptive new batteries. Washed and vacuumed by hand, every time. I never let you go out with flat shoes or an empty tank. When those 18-year-old college freshmen in the campus parking lot put little dents in your side I wept and rubbed mineral oil into the scuffs to get the paint out. When your visor split open I put a bolt through it to keep it closed, and I promise, no one noticed. When the center console broke I installed a new hinge that didn’t squeak, making it better than before. When your steering wheel started peeling I bought you a leather wheel cover to protect you, fashionably. When your exterior black weather seals started peeling and standing up in the air like cowlicks, I gave them a snip to preserve your clean bullet-like silhouette. When the outer weather seals on the windshield started peeling, I maintained perfect faith that you wouldn’t let the rain leak into the cabin. You didn’t.

You ferried me through college and first jobs and heartbreak, with your sagacious yellowing headlights and forward-heavy stance. I sang more songs aloud to you than any other. I know there is the salt of tears crystallized in your upholstery. We went to mountains and beaches together, from Hollywood to San Diego, always on an adventure somewhere. And you never broke down, not even once.

No bluetooth. No rear-view camera. No electric power steering. No tickets. No accidents. No tows. We were careful and skillful and diligent.

I salute my metal companion, who honors the legendary name Honda Civic and its massive expectations of reliability to fill. You were loved from day one to the very end. I was never embarrassed by you, even when you started looking weary. I was proud to tell people I’d been loyal to you for so long, that I did everything in my power to fight the natural course of time and entropy.

The state in which you leave a person’s home vastly outweighs how you first entered it. The final time I sat in your driver’s seat, I looked through the windshield and remembered all the places we’ve explored together over the last twelve years, all at once.