Yesterday, I had lunch at a vegan restaurant called Vegeria with my friend Janet P--with every intention of discussing the details of our upcoming trip to Chicago for her daughter's wedding--when she said, "I read in your blog you're feeling blue; what's up?"
That was all it took to start tears that didn't much stop for the rest of the day. I had no idea they were even hovering, those tears.
"I miss my Mini Cooper!" I said.
I have a pretty and practical new turquoise Honda. It's probably safer, certainly more spacious, than a Mini. It has big wide mirrors and no blind spots. It navigates bumpy roads well; it doesn't have those stupid run-flat tires that require towing on a long road trip when you have a flat and are further than fifty miles from a Mini dealership. Five people can ride in this big Honda with ease and comfort.
But for ninety-nine percent of my life, only one person is riding in it!
I'd traded the little Mini for the Big Minnie because I felt it would be safer for transporting children in car seats.
Then I traded Big Minnie for the Honda because of theTire-and-Towing nuisance and the hope that a different car would be friendlier to my driving leg that still hurts exactly the same as it did in the Mini. But every time I see a Mini, any color, any size, I still follow it with my eyes, probably like people do who see their favorite breed of puppy when they no longer have one.
"I don't feel like me anymore," I said to Janet--and she (who never cries about cars) totally got it!
"Well," she said, "You have to fix that!"
She had a sweet, bemused expression on her face, so kind, that it made me think: "Oh yeah, I hadn't though of that!"
Sometimes when you're sad about one thing, you realize that the top thing is attached by invisible strings to other things, and if you're a person like me, you have to talk to people who love you to figure out what all's tied to the other end of the strings.
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