From Junky Cars to Glittering Gowns

It was summer of 2006, and I had driven 3 hours north to rent a $3,000 pageant gown. As a starving student, I thought that renting this high budget gown would help me look like I had it all figured out and that it would propel me to a win in my upcoming competition. What I didn’t think about, however, was how this journey might affect my car.

I loved my car. She was a 1989 Toyota Camry with more than 280,000 miles on it. She had survived my sister (who had killed 2 other cars before this one), she didn’t have a working a/c, and the radio was spotty. But that’s not all, the back passenger door didn’t open from the inside, and the ignition was so beat up you could start the car with a screwdriver. My sister’s old boyfriend had tried to fix the steering column, and his lack of skill meant that the ignition didn’t always stay put. For instance, if you turned too sharply to the right, the entire ignition would fall out and hit you in the toe. But man, I loved that car. It was so reliable. It carried me through some of my favorite teenage memories. It wasn’t glamorous, but it had character. It was the embodiment of not letting anything keep you from moving forward.

So, imagine my surprise when, driving toward the freeway with a red-carpet gown in the back, I heard a loud thump and went over a large bump. My car shuddered and the speedometer dropped as my car no longer responded to my foot slamming down on the gas pedal. I used my slowing momentum to hobble the car to the side of the road. And then I looked back to where the bump had happened. There, in the middle of the road was a large block of twisted metal.  The bottom of my car had rusted out and my transmission was laying bare for all to see.

I was hit with grief as I realized my beloved car had died. The car that seemed to always miraculously start up would not be able to anymore. I pulled out the ignition and held it lovingly to my chest. Then, I remembered that I had a dress worth 10 times the amount of my car sitting in the back seat… and I was in a rough part of town with no means for getting home.

Reaching for our dreams can feel like this scenario. Here I was, dreaming big. I had committed to getting a dress that I thought would help me win. And yet, the reality was that my ability to keep going was falling apart. I thought that my car would always keep chugging along. It had in the past – why wouldn’t it keep going forever? By assuming that it would always perform as it always had, I wasn’t tending to its actual needs, and I abused it until it fell apart. (Ironically, my burnout journey followed a very similar trajectory).

The death of my first car taught me that reaching for a dream is not enough. The vehicle for getting to your dreams also deserves your attention.

Thanks for reading with me. I hope that you are taking good care of the vehicles that are driving you towards your dreams.