He first kissed me there. We were sitting in his car, a 2006 Volkswagen Jetta, in the parking garage across the street from the restaurant where we both worked. It was after 2 A.M. but that meant nothing to either of us as the conversation flowed from one topic to the next. Finally, an awkward silence.
“I don’t want to go home,” I said to fill the void.
“I know,” he replied, and leaned toward me over the gearshift.
Several weeks later, after we both became disentangled from prior relationships, he took me out for a proper date. He pulled up to my apartment in the Jetta, and for the first time I got to sit in the interior while the car was running. The name of the song on the radio was lit up on a screen in the center console. He helped me fight off the chilly December night by turning on his heated seats. This was relatively new technology in 2008. Heated seats, you guys. I was hooked.
TO GEORGIA
He became my boyfriend and our days spent together at work blended into days off spent at my apartment or his father’s house. The next year, we decided to move to Georgia to start a new adventure together. I sold my car, but we hooked the Jetta up to a 22-foot Penske truck and headed south.
Anyone who has driven through the North Carolina mountains knows the steep climbs and whirling descents that deliver gorgeous views. I had my foot pressing the pedal down to the metal as the moving van lumbered up the mountain at 45 mph with the Jetta trailing behind. I felt like I was exerting myself and not just the truck as I gripped the wheel with my right hand and begged the train of cars behind me with my left to just “PLEASE GO AROUND!”
STICK
The move to Georgia was complete but I had one skill to learn to ensure that I could get around. Since the Jetta was our only car, I had to learn to drive a stick shift. We sat in the parking lot of the Home Depot and he explained the manual transmission to me. The car inched forward slowly and I knew that I had got it.
I hadn’t got it. Taking the car out on the road was an entirely different matter, and he sat frustrated in the passenger seat as I tersely told him to stop explaining the mechanics of gears to me, because THAT. WASN’T. HELPING. Cars behind me on the road had to wait patiently as I stalled again, and again, and again. Six months went by with little progress, but eventually I became either better at shifting or less concerned with the inevitable stall. Driving stick remains the only thing in my life that I didn’t really improve at no matter how hard I try. It’s not for me. I stall every time. But I can get from A to B.
WE MARRY
Many women hire a chauffeur, or rent a limo or vintage car to take them to their wedding reception. To each bride their own, but I didn’t need all of that. Things were made official in the same manner in which they began: my husband and I were buckled into the seats of the Jetta. With him at the wheel, we headed to Carlouel Yacht Club in Clearwater Beach, Florida for our big night. The next morning he drove us to our honeymoon as I napped with my face pressed against the window until he nudged me awake. We’re here.
DEAN MAKES THREE
I was terrified of being hungry at the hospital. I’d heard that they don’t let women eat while they are in labor, and I wasn’t about to have anyone deny me a meal. After two nights of at-home labor in which not much progress was made, I asked him to make me a light dinner while I took a bath. I came out of the water to the most beautiful salad topped with grilled chicken. I glanced at it without eating and told him it was time to go.
Living in the countryside of Georgia meant that the drive to the hospital was an hour long. I laid down in the back of the Jetta and listened to my headphones as he sped down the road. He passed someone, probably going too fast, but I was too preoccupied with my contraction-timing app to notice. I spoke once the entire ride: “Turn down the A/C.”
Dean arrived the next morning and a few days later he was strapped into the Jetta to head back home. We were a family of three in this car in which everything began.
BACK TO WORK
By now we had another car, but the Jetta was deemed the safer of the two. I drove it more often, especially while our son was still in his newborn car seat. I went back to work and pumped breast milk in a mop closet on my break. Once buckled in on the way home, I plugged my pump into the car charger and struggled through exhaustion to make enough to feed our boy for the next day. Dried drops of errant breast milk appeared on the steering wheel.
One night the flashing blue lights of the police appeared in my rear-view mirror. I pulled over in the nearest parking lot, threw the car in park (depress the clutch or you’ll stall again!) and tore the phalanges off my breasts. Clutching the shirt around myself I looked up to see the police officer already shining a light through my window.
Apparently, I’d failed to stay in my lane. I was so tired.
“I understand why you’re doing this,” he said. “But you have to do it safely.” I took my warning and drove the rest of the way home with the flush of embarrassment on my cheeks. And bottles hooked to my chest.
NEW CARS
Four years have passed and his job now includes a ton of driving. The Jetta is topping out at over 190,000 miles. We upgraded one car, and were gifted another from dear family members. I am surprised to see that despite our new vehicles, he often takes the Jetta to work.
Our insurance payment now includes three automobiles and is getting even more expensive.
“We should sell it,” he says, but neither he nor I make a move to do so. Our neighbor is happy to tell us that she has a friend who will buy it. We dodge her.
I have Marie-Kondo’ed much of my house and gotten rid of many things that don’t “spark joy,” but I can’t say goodbye to this car. If you ask me if I want it up on cinder blocks in my trashy yard for years to come, then the answer might honestly be, “yes!” I daydream about my son learning to drive stick in the same seat in which I did.
As my mother constantly reminds me about material goods, “Sarah, they are just things…” Yes. But cars are our home away from home. They protect us. They bear silent witness to countless interactions and last for so long that they might as well be a part of the family. I’ve lived a lot of life in this machine.
I have a feeling that I’m not the only person who feels this way. Perhaps you’re reading this and fondly remembering that car that was special to you; I’d love to hear about it. I learned to drive in a Chevy Cavalier. I drove across the country by myself in a Ford Taurus. The first car I bought for myself was a Chrysler Sebring. But I fell in love in, and fell in love with, a 2006 Volkswagen Jetta.
