My Glory Days

When I woke this morning, I had a vague notion that things were changing. And then I thought for a moment to figure what it was that was different: we were getting a new (used) car.

I've had two cars in my life. The first was my ever-loyal, sapphire blue Honda Civic Coupe. That baby took me everywhere. It was not just a vehicle, but a home to countless secret confessions and indecently-loud emo and rock music.  It was faithful in its vehicular service, too, taking me back and forth to high school every day, and not complaining too much when a girl in my class ran into it in the senior parking lot. The car and I spent a lot of time driving my sister around to her various extra curricular activities and depositing her at her own school on the mornings when she could manage getting her act together on time (love you, sissy). The Civic got me safely to Downtown Norfolk for more concerts at the NorVa than I can count on every single one of my fingers and toes. With the Civic, I went all around Virginia Beach, from the Oceanfront to Princess Anne and beyond, to follow the scene bands like No Talent Show and Audiostrobelight as they grew their local fan bases and put on adrenaline-filled local shows. My best friend/catcher and I must have logged thousands of miles on that car taking our bi-monthly trips to Chesapeake for pitching lessons with Mr. Tim. (My car never complained about how much Monster I drank before I went in to pitch, even though everyone else seemed to.)

The Civic followed me to college, where it endured a great deal of hardship. I spilled chocolate ganache all over the passenger seat when bringing my freshman roommate a homemade cake one weekend, and the stain never went away. It survived a pretty horrific 2 AM hit-and-run outside the ODU TKE house in the badlands of Norfolk and took me on several weekend trips to UVA which I cannot remember for one reason or another, but mostly because my namesake friend really knew how to party. When I went to Washington, D.C. for a year of interning, the car went with me. Without it, I'm not sure how I would have managed buying groceries or going on extraneous trips to Annapolis and my hometown. Later on, when I was working in D.C. during the summer before senior year, that car took me home every single weekend. It never once complained about omnipresent Quantico traffic or the price of gas. It simply drove.

After graduation, the car took me even further. It brought me to the District one final time for a summer of interning, went on one memorable Charlottesville trip, and took a group of interns on many a grocery run. It took me back to Virginia Beach for one final stay at home, then up and back to northern Virginia and Charlottesville as I searched desperately for a place to call my own. It finally found a permanent parking spot on Riverbend Drive, and I think we were both a little sad that we were no longer driving together all over God's green earth. I was an employed person. There was little time for concerts and excursions to miscellaneous places. I no longer drove in it with my hair, the sunroof and the windows down, the music way up. But sometimes I indulged our mutual need for fun; I took it to Pittsburgh twice and Michigan once, and we loved the travel. One thing the Civic did not appreciate, however, were its drives to Staunton. As it drove over the steepest part of I-64 in the winter, I could tell my Civic was starting to slip a little. The engine didn't want to rev, my tires weren't sticking, and for the first time in its life, the Civic was showing its age.

That was the indisputable best thing about the Civic. In spite of being kept in terrible shape (go ahead, leave your comments about how deplorable it was - I know you guys want to!), it never once stopped running or blew a tire. It was my dependable car, the only thing to stay what it was and not undergo massive changes from the years between 2004 and 2011. I appreciated the steadfastness, but with the slippery reactions to its trip to Staunton, I figured it was time to start looking around for something else.

Almost a year later, on a whim, my boyfriend and I stopped at a Dodge dealership next to Sam's Club. We stared at a Challenger R/T for what must have been less than two minutes before a jolly salesman came out our way. He let us sit in the R/T and smell the leather interior. I stared in envy at the center console's touch-screen navigation system. But most of all, I salivated over the car's lines; it was a hulking beauty, and I wanted to drive it, because I thought it might make me cool. When we started to talk to the helpful salesman, he convinced us it was a great time to buy.

I still worried for a week over facts and figures. A Camaro or a Challenger? A V6 or a V8? In the end, I decided the Camaro looked too slick for me. It was the sleazy sex kitten and the Challenger was a massive jungle cat, rear haunches waiting to pounce on anything that dared attempt to rival its speed and road-hugging abilities. And although I bought the V6 model, that thing had pickup and sticking ability. The car was a beast, low-slung and dark.  But no one thought it looked like something I should be driving. "Are you driving your boyfriend's car?" was a question I heard a lot. "You drive that?" was another. "Oh, I'm surprised you would drive that car," was said offhandedly to me on many an occasion. At first, it made me angry. Did I wear too much makeup to drive a muscle car? Was I too feminine, my hair too blonde, my clothes too pink? What was it that made me an unsuitable candidate to drive my own car?

Whether or not it suited me, the Challenger was fun. It was great for hugging the twisting back roads of Barboursville and pulling up to  remote vineyards. It was decent for long drives, unless you were one of the unlucky folks to get stuck in the back seat.

But all the time I had the Challenger, I was careful with it. I didn't want to put many miles on it for fear it would cease to be collectible (what a foolish idea. There are so many Challengers produced now it is crazy to imagine people collecting them in the future.) I was a hesitant driver because I never quite figured out where my car was on the road for how low its frame sat, and I couldn't see anything in the extensive blind spots created by small and nonexistent windows.

The first real problem occurred in the sneak snowstorm that hit Charlottesville in early 2013. I made it through my neighborhood slowly and carefully, but I struggled to get up the hill at work. When the snow got worse, I eventually had to beg rides off of my landlord because my car would not go where I needed to be. This was a problem. And it was a problem that I anticipated would get worse once I moved to Michigan.

At first, Michigan was fine. I had nowhere I needed to be once the winter hit. But then we had 24 inches of snow in two weeks, and during one of those weeks, my husband was on a business trip. Had I needed to go anywhere for food or in an emergency, I'd have been SOL; my car was not going to make it over the packed-down ice and snow that covered every road around for two days. And then, there was the salt. The last thing I wanted was for the car I had so lovingly protected to become salt-ridden and get eaten away by rust. So I stayed inside, succumbing to cabin fever and my belief that I would meet certain tragedy should I leave my home.

This morning, I made corned beef hash, which I then turned into an impressive omelette (own horn successfully tooted). When he'd finished that breakfast, my husband asked, "so, when do you want to clean out your car?" That was when it hit me: my Challenger was going away. Inexplicably, that was also when the chorus to Bruce Springsteen's "Glory Days" got stuck on repeat in my head.

My dad took me to see Bruce play when I was between 7 and 11 years old.  We were vacationing in D.C. and Bruce was playing at the Verizon Center. My dad was excited to go and I was thrilled to be included. Concerts were his thing, and he got so excited about them that they became my thing by extension (to this day, I love nothing more than a good live show). When we got to our seats, the sea of middle-aged people was already in motion. Here I should note that I also grew up around my dad's friends, lovers of Grateful Dead and Phish and all sorts of jam bands. Most of those friends were hippies, or at least had a distinctive hippie streak. Bruce brought a different sort of crowd. They were all dressed well, most of them wearing distressed Levis and soft t-shirts with respectable shoes. Some of the women were revealing more cleavage than was typical, but unlike the hippie crowds, they at least smelled nice and didn't look completely stoned.

Eventually the music started and the people began to move even more. We all loved hearing Bruce and the E Street Band play their unbelievable music. At some point, Bruce and Clarence and Miami Steve started playing the intro to Glory Days, and it was as if all of the middle-aged members of the audience had been injected with straight adrenaline. They were giddy, jumping and screaming along, and I was completely and utterly confused. It was just another song to me, but not to them.  Later on, my dad explained that it was a song that resonated with older folks. The older I get, the more I understood the song and why it spurred that whole audience into hysterics.

As I did the dishes this morning, I turned on Glory Days and got suddenly nostalgic, but not for my Challenger. Sure, in ten years I'll be one of those people who laments the fact that they sold their muscle car when they did. The Challenger was a great vehicle. It was sturdy and sexy and much too cool for boring old me.

But what I find myself really missing this morning is not the Challenger, but my Civic. I miss the long nights and teenager talks, the drives to nowhere when nothing mattered and I had no one to rely on me. I miss the friendships that blossomed and secrets exchanged in that car. I miss the spontaneous trips to nowhere in particular, because what really mattered was the company, not the destination. I miss packing the car to the brim with all the things I owned and carting them to my next temporary residence. Back then, my roots weren't planted to any place in particular, except perhaps the floor of my filthy car. I miss those glory days.

Tomorrow, we sign the papers for the new car: an '09 SRX with lots of miles and a few interior smudges and scrapes.  I feel better knowing this car has been lived in and loved because it means I'm free to do the same; to enjoy my new car rather than to treat it like a museum piece, like I did the Challenger. But what I really want to do with the SRX is recreate a little of that carefree spirit I used to have, and get back to the way I felt during those days of freedom and possibility before my youth passes me by. I can't wait for the first warm day so I can pull back the sunroof and let the wind rush through my hair while I sing loudly along to Saves the Day and Motion City Soundtrack. The invite is an open one, if anyone wants to come along for the ride.