An unnatural relationship

My first car was a 1970 mustang. It had scrap metal for an engine, and a very unusual body style that was only made one year and looked more like the camaro than a mustang. It was ugly and beat up and I loved it with a passion. My father’s friend had a body shop and so he and I sanded, scraped, scrubbed, and painted that body into a smooth poppy red color that the guys all called “cop catcher red” that would guarantee me several speeding tickets. Less than a year later, I moved across the country and had to leave the car behind. I drove a hand-me-down for a while, then bought my first new car that I drove for 6 years. When it started to break down, I was ready to buy what I wanted – not just what I could afford. So I bought myself a 2006 mustang convertible. It was previously owned for a short time and in immaculate condition. And just like the cop catcher, I love this car with a passion. I am protective of it, proud of it, and I baby it. I know that it sounds ridiculous. I know it’s not natural to love a car more than some humans. But I love this car. It is my first convertible and I don’t know how I lived without one before or how I will ever go back to standard vehicle. When that top goes down – life changes for me. Now, I have always enjoyed driving. It relieves stress for me to be out on an open road, cruising along by myself. Put the top down and suddenly the world is brighter (obviously – the sun comes in!) and I am no longer trapped. I am in nature; seeing, smelling and feeling the environment around me. Any worries I had in my mind are now part of the dust behind my tires. It’s a feeling of happiness that I just can’t compare to any other enjoyment I have. Shooter gets this feeling from his boat. It calms him. This calms me.

I have had to do many body repairs since I moved to Shreveport, thanks to the tornado of October 2009 and my recent rear-ending. Now she has a new body and looks like new again. I couldn’t be happier with her.

Writing as therapy

Writing to me has always been therapeutic. I have an old folder of poems and thoughts that I wrote when I was a teenager full of angst and what I thought at the time was true suffering. I guess they were about love, but I can’t remember who I loved so much that could cause me so much agony. I wrote a blog once called “I have Issues.” It listed all the things that I never would have told my real-life friends and family. I hope that at the time, I was able to get some relief by writing things out. To me, getting it on paper, even virtual paper, is to get it out of my head, out of my body, out of me. If I can articulate a thought enough to put it into actual words and sentences, maybe I have put all the energy I need to into it, filed it away in a mental drawer, and I can move past it and move on with my life. I used to keep every single thing I ever wrote or received. Later, I found myself going back to them and reliving the feelings they evoked in me. I found that was painful, so I trashed a ton of it and was never able to look back. THAT was therapeutic.