Ode to our 1999 Jetta,

We knew this day was coming, old friend, but I didn't think it would be so soon. It's time for us to say goodbye. We have all been ignoring the signs of your demise for a while. First, the radio start turning stations whenever we hit a bump in the road, then your locks started locking and unlocking spontaneously, ala Christine. Then your heating system began to smell oddly of maple syrup. This last year the real decline began, when you became incontinent, leaking oil at an alarming rate and your engine began to rattle, making it sound as if we were driving a tin can full of marbles. But we held on Jetta, not ashamed to drive you around. OK, maybe that one time at dinner with H's boss when the valet pulled up his yellow Ferrari and you at the same time, his car silently purring and you shaking your death rattle. Not able to ignore what everyone was already thinking, I came to your defense with a joke, "Who wants to drag race?!"

For years, H and I have put off buying a new car. First, financially, but second, because we don't know life without you. I still remember the first day, when I picked you up, reveling in your newness and the fiery red a newlywed H gave in and let me pick, blasting TLC's Fanmail album on the drive home (RIP Left Eye). Bought in our first year of marriage, you have been there for every kid-free adventure H and I have taken. Long weekends away with our equally childless friends, trips to the shore, jaunts into the city, were all taken in you. H and I would open the windows and blast "good time" music, preferably Journey's "Anyway You Want It".

Time marches on, and you rolled along with us into parenthood. We all got our feet wet (and interiors soiled) first with Reilly. You made the six hour round trip drive upstate with us, the latter half with H and I taking turns in the passenger seat with an eight pund puppy curled around our necks. Then came the kids and your diminutive size became an issue. Heavily pregnant with #1, I decided it was a great idea to pack my huge-ass self, KK, H and Reilly into the car for a six hour drive to New Hampshire, like a yuppie clown car. I apologize to you and everyone at that rest stop for leaping out of the car, like my ill-fitting maternity pants were on fire, the moment H screeched to a halt, screaming, "I CAN'T GET COMFORTABLE!!!" Six weeks later, you were there when we tentatively started our journey as parents. As I staggered from the wheelchair, and H snapped in the car seat, I took refuge in your familiarity. My world had turned upside down with a heartbeat and a push, and after two days in a strange new world, you were my first taste of home and my old self.

You brought, yet another, child home from the hospital, and containing our progeny in your cabin became an impossibility. Passenger seat cranked forward to accommodate a rear-facing car seat, an adult passenger would have to ride, literally hugging the dashboard. So then came your chubby younger sister, the minivan. Perhaps you felt displaced, now that I was driving her everyday, but you know that was out of sheer necessity. H let me pick the color of the van, thinking this would be exciting - like letting a kid pick out the color of the rubber bands on his braces. I now piloted a loser cruiser*, and had become a typical suburban mother, but I still had you. Physically not being able to cram all the kids into you, I was child-free whenever IW as behind your wheel and driving you became instantly related to freedom.

Dear Jetta, freedom is why H and I love you so much. Driving you alone on date nights, we are still "the kids", the nickname given to us by his younger brother when the only kids around were all of us in our twenties. H prying open your creaky passenger side door for me, my hair freshly blown out, smelling of perfume and lipstick in stead of spit up and apple juice, has been my favorite moment of the week for the last few years. Trying desperately to bring you into the 21st century, we used the casette deck iPod input to play our music, no Miley Cyrus here, speeding off, away from our responsibilities for a few precious hours. And I am never more in love with you than when I peel out of the driveway for my annual weekend with B, coffee in your broken cup holder teetering precariously, Beyonce blasting from your one working speaker and your engine rattling away. Let's not mention I had to leave you at home this year and take the van. It still makes me sad. And all of our solo vacations - did you mind all those hours spent in the long term parking at Newark Airport? Or was it fun hanging out with all the other cars?

I had H take a picture of you and me, just like the one he took thirteen years ago. We both look a little worse for wear - a few more dents and cracks on both of us, but we both have a few more good miles left in the tank. I'd like to say that it's time we both move on, that it's fitting that at this point in my life, we buy a bigger, snazzier car, but I can't. I don't want to say goodbye to that part of my life. When I drive you I am twenty-four without a care in the world, instead of fast approaching forty with the tragedies and triumphs of three little people on my mind. I had a good little cry as H and I sat in the dealer parking lot, ready to trade you in ($500 was an insult, AN INSULT, I tell you!). Leaving you there was like leaving part of us behind.

I wish you well, good little Jetta. I hope they tune you up, and some teenage girl convinces her dad that she is responsible enough to handle you and she gets a job at a mall kiosk selling cell phone covers to pay for your insurance. I hope she hangs her graduation tassel from your rear view mirror and adds a college sticker to your back window. I hope your ashtray is full of ponytail elastics and tubes of lip gloss. I hope one day this summer, you are cruising down the Garden State Parkway, maybe going a little too fast, with her and her friends blasting Rihanna. I hope, after us, you go on and have a whole nother life.

I will miss you.

Love,
MM


*Love that term Linds.