I want you all to meet someone who used to be a very big part of my life. I also ask that everyone has a moment of silence for her, as her body is laying in a graveyard of solemn left overs and poorly made choices to go when they should have stopped. A moment of silence for my love.
I need to introduce you to Louetta the Jetta.
On my 16th birthday in Virginia, I found this small black car with a gold racer stripe taking a nap in my cold concrete garage- with a big red bow I might add. I remember the first time I revved her engine... mostly because I sat down in the car and I remember this boy Ryan yelling at me to rev her engine... to which I asked, "how?" Ah I was one smart 16 year old! But either way, I remember the feeling of putting my narrow foot onto her pedal and rocking her world. Once I revved that girl's engine, we hit it off. : )
We were so close, she taught me how to park, get a diet cherry vanilla coke from sonic(aka heaven), roll my window down and blast the music, strategically make the person in the car next to me feel awkward at a stop light, make turns, pick up boys, use highway ramps, play car games, do chinese fire drills, all the normal things a 16 year old girl in America should do. But the thing is... that love was equally matched in hate. Louetta and I abused each other.
When I drove Louetta across country from the east coast to Arizona she was not very pleased. It turns out she really didn't want to survive in the Valley of Dante's inferno... oh excuse me... the valley of the sun. She did not want to put up with 115 degree heat... so she abused me. Things started to happen in our relationship- it got ugly. She decided to shatter her own window, so i starved her of gas... the screws fell out of the door forcing me to drive around with a taped door and climb in through the passenger's seat, so i starved her of gas... she decided that her "check engine" light would be on at a constant rate, so I starved her of gas... she decided that the glue that held the lock of my door in place would melt in the heat so that the lock actually fell out of the car into my hand making it literally impossible for me to get in the car, so I starved her of gas. I did the only thing I knew how to do- I punished her by not feeding her. Well that in turn created a hole in some thing-a-bob in the shmer-mher under the car hood... I am not going to pretend like I knew what the mechanic was saying... I just nod and smile. So one lesson of the day is... yes you can drive a Jetta with the gas light on for 30 miles, but it's pushing it to go further than that. Louetta abused me and I abused her.
But in the end, she saw a tragic death that I was not there to witness actually... and it was very unexpected. I'm glad I wasn't there to see it because watching someone t-bone my precious vw would have broken my heart... just as having to go see her at the graveyard to get music scores out of my trunk broke my heart. RIP Louetta the Jetta: we abused each other, but we loved each other.
Now the reason I just described to you a tragedy from my past is because if Louetta was a person I would have regretted not feeding her... especially when I wasn't there to say goodbye to her. This isn't about a car folks, this is about not appreciating what we have. I had no idea on that day that she was going to have her life taken from her... I took advantage of her so often. We can not take advantage of the people in our lives, even if it's unintentional. And more importantly- we must always thank them for being in our lives! Lately I have just felt the need to let everyone I know around me how grateful I am for them, because I know that my life is headed in new directions as I am growing up, and I have no idea where I will be ever again! So I want to take the time while I am near them, to thank them.
I want to take a moment to thank everyone who has affected me in my life and I think you should as well. Because the facts are, we all have to go sometime, but we never know when that will be. Okay, that took a morbid turn, but honestly! So let's not take advantage, let's love and be thankful to those around us with an open heart every day!
I want to thank you, who ever you are, for listening to me ramble on in an attempt to make a metaphor out of my car. : )
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