This morning I saw my car perhaps for the last time. I say "perhaps" because it will be staying in my neighborhood, on the other side of the subway line. Maybe sometimes I will see it. And if you're in the neighborhood, maybe you will recognize it, the Indigo Blue Corolla that pretends to be the rough sports car but really has a normal heart like most other normal looking cars.
I am sentimental. I couldn't wait to get rid of it. But when I finally got rid of it, signed the title over, and left the insurance company with all those hundred-dollar bills, I felt nostalgia. There is no remorse. Don't get me wrong. I am happy that I won't have to look for a parking space anymore. That my Mother won't ask me to do any driving favors for her. That I don't have to pay for insurance anymore. That I never have to worry that someone is going to hit my car while it's parked somewhere far, or that they have some special event on that street and have to tow my car but that I wouldn't know because it is usually parked so far from where I usually walk.
I am happy I have gotten rid of a major possession in my quest to own as little in this world as I can without sacrificing true comfort. I wish I could get rid of my house now.
But strangely, I am more attached to the car than to the house, and I am more attached to the car than I had thought. I have written a sentimental blog entry about it, so I won't repeat the same sappy sentimentality here. But when I had to clean out all my junk in the car, I found a few trinkets of memories. Frankly, though, I can't remember which woman this or that belonged to. The names, or even faces, don't matter so much as that the car accompanied me through my dramas in the past five years that I have owned this car. When I walked past it again, after depositing my cash immediately, I saw that it would a good car. No matter what the buyers were trying to tell me about its defects in an effort to lower the bargaining price, it was a good car. Good in the sense that it had been connected to me and only me for its life so far, and for most of my car-owning life in New Haven.
On the same day that girl from Missouri wrote to me to tell me about her next stages in life, which included going to a festival for free and living in different basements, including her car! I got worried. I told her I was worried.
Why was I worried? I didn't want to talk to this girl again. (In case you have lost track of which girl/woman is which, this is the singer that I took to the airport at 5 in the morning a few weeks ago.) But I was worried. And I thought it was ridiculous that having such a protective family and with very wealthy relatives, she has to live in her car.
It bothers me a little that I cared. I bothered me a little more than a little that I should want to be cold.
I went to my first kungfu thingie today. My body is all broken, good thing no tango tonight. Besides pushing my body to the breaking point after having only gone to the gym a handful of times since last Thanksgiving, I was reminded that martial arts is not about beating someone up, but finding peace in your heart and in your mind. The Shifu made an interesting point: once you have found that connection to your heart and mind, you need not fight, or at least not find yourself in a situation to fight.
I am bothered by how much I care about the people I refuse to talk to again, and I am bothered by this reality that I am bothered. All this has to do with the fact that I am so disconnected from myself, from my body, my mind, my heart. I get disappointed quickly. I get jealous easily. I don't know who I am and whenever a woman chooses someone else and rejects me, the self-hate multiplies. I wish it was that easy what I want to do: be friends with people for the goal of reconnecting with myself, be friends, not anything else. There is a part of me that knows if I could do that, if I could reconnect with those I have refused to talk to anymore, I will reconnect with myself. But paradoxically, if all this hypothesizing is true, the lack of connection now is the reason I can't connect with those people.
This is why I should be careful with the new people I meet. I will be meeting this teacher in a couple of hours. For the first time since we became close. I know I will have to struggle a little not to get stuck in those big brown eyes and beautiful smile of hers. I hope she and I will be great friends and whatever drama that will happen between us will be those between friends.
Now, a bit of a nap before meeting up with her. Good bye to my car. This is one breakup that is proceeding without any drama.
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