Separate love from addiction /

Posted by Sasha – May 5, 2010

its not the same /
i know /
i see /
desperation pulling my strings /

take out your hairpins and /
lift up your party dress and /
sit back and listen for the rush of suffering /
hey eliza /
is this what you want? /
sometimes you compromise to get the things you need /

i’ve got everything that you want /
i’ve got everything and its a brand new world eliza /
i’ve got everything that you want /
i’ve got everything except the single thing you really need /

send away /
blood and rejection; they isolate /
i know i see, a generation staring back at me /
wasted away /
wasted my time /
this picture you see /
is nothing like the one I wanted painted of me

“Love and Addiction,” Counting Crows

I’m cleaning out my car tonight. I finally bought a new one, and the old one has to go back to the dealership tomorrow. I cried about it. I cried a lot. I woke my mom up late at night so I could cry to her about it. I sobbed hysterically, unable to catch my breath. My nose plugged up. This went on for half an hour. “That car’s been with me through some of the hardest times of my life,” I told her. “It kept me safe. It never let me down. I can’t just abandon it like this.”

My mom made the point that perhaps the car doesn’t have the same fear of abandonment that I do. That perhaps the car doesn’t feel people have let it down in the past. And that, perhaps, I was not at all crying about the car. I knew that already, I guess. I just can’t quite figure out why I was crying. I can’t pinpoint it. Where this overwhelming sense of grief has its roots. My mom told me I don’t have to know, it doesn’t matter. The important thing is that I cry, that I allow the emotion to pass through my body freely. So I did that. And I am going to write the car a thank-you note and I am going to leave it in there tonight so my car has all night to read it. And then I am going to hide a little gift and a much shorter note that hopefully nobody will find, and my car can know that I still care deeply for it, even though it won’t be seeing me anymore.

I love you, buddy, and thanks for being my stability in a life that was mostly chaos.

  • Alicia Schmidt

    Sasha, I totally understand this! I can remember bawling when getting rid of an old car, trading it in for a new & improved car. For some reason I couldn't shake it & when I went back to the delaership for plates or whatever I saw my old car sitting there for sale. I wished I could buy it, I wanted it back. I am going through something similar now. My husband quit his 6 figure salary job & I was laid off in January. We drove a BMW and an Infiniti. We thought it would be very irresponsible to keep both of those cars. We traded them in for 2 hondas. Everytime we see a car on the road like our old ones we just reminisce about how it felt to drive those cars. It meant something, status, I've made it. Now we just feel original, even though we are the same people. I get it. You are normal. Whatever that means.

  • joey

    I feel a little silly telling you to buy a Buick,I didn't realize you was drug dealer flush!

  • joey

    I cried when my micro-wave oven broke,we've really been through a lot together.

  • Rachel

    I totally understand. I don't see much of difference between a car and a childhood teddy bear, which a lot of people form intense attachments too (including myself). One may be soft and have a face but the other can take you places while you blast music with the windows down.

    I'm sure you will love your new baby just as much but we all need a mourning period. :)

  • Sharon

    Nice! So you DID get a Lexus :) I suppose if I could afford to I would as well. Damn good cars. Congratulations and enjoy!!

  • Jennie

    Remember my black Tahoe from high school? I seriously needed to be tranquilized when I sold that car. I don't care what anyone says, it is totally possible to form an emotional attachment to an inanimate object. That car saved my life. It was my security blanket. Call me crazy, but that car had a soul.

  • LoveFromMN

    You will quickly move on when the new car smell overtakes you as you glide down the road playing with the new gadgets.

  • Sharon

    My husband was recently rear-ended in my old car, a 1998 Civic I bought myself, brand new, just before graduating high school. It was totaled, and it wrecked me! Of course I was sad that he was in such a bad accident, and grateful that he wasn't badly injured. But saying goodbye to a car that graduated high school, took me through several years of college, moved to a state over 1500 miles away with me....yeah, I hear ya Sasha. I do.

    Soooo....what did you end up getting?!

  • Merc

    Hey who says inanimate objects can't love. Sometimes a piece of metal can provide all the warmth and safety we need at the time.

blog comments powered by Disqus