Who or what was your calm that helped heal the chaos?

Do you feel relief when you know you are the only one battling something?

Or do you feel empathy for their experience even if similar or less severe?

In this small and wonderful beach town where I reside, sometimes it feels like a lot of people are having similar experiences, or even people in other parts of the world. Then I wonder if it is the moon, or the stars or current events, do they have similar signs or demographics?

Or, is it like when you are thinking about jeeps and suddenly see jeeps everywhere?

Like, I still see, frequently, the last car I owned in the States, my trusty Sand-colored Toyota Corolla ’99.

Before I had my Toyota Corolla I had several cars that were ‘on their last wheel’ and would frequently break down…giving me trust issues with cars, and a bit of anxiety on long trips…I’d broken down, so many times in so many places.

I had so many workarounds, just to get the vehicle to function, having to pull over and jimmy rig something…and everytime I brought my vehicle to the mechanic they would say something like…’I don’t know if this vehicle is worth the repairs it needs’.

Finally, I got a car that wasn’t on its way out… I used to look at car classified magazines, but… I was looking at older models, I would always consult the Consumer Report, as I felt reliability was so important…but so is what that car has been through, its history…

Anyway, shout out to my Mom and Stepdad for finally saying enough with breaking down all the time, they recommended I look at getting a car that was only a few years old…you know, I was resistant at first…like ‘oh, I don’t know, about that…’

Car payments, nicer, newer car…scary… Then, when I realized if I got a decent rate, payments would not be so bad, and significantly less than my frequent repair costs. Then I remember thinking…’well, if I’m going to get something newer, than I want to find something that I’m going to be satisfied with for the future’, so I wanted to try and go a little above basic (boring)…
It felt like such a huge decision, and with how it impacted my life, it really was!

I had looked at the basic model of a Toyota Corolla and wasn’t certain, so I came home to think about it. Look it up on Consumer reports and find out there were rave reviews…so I decided that was most important. Went back the next day to discover it was already sold…

But, in its place was the LE version for $500 less and 500 more miles, decision made…sand-colored Toyota Corolla from Harleysville… I was thrilled when I discovered the car in its place had a moon roof, CD player, and a…what do they call that…a spoiler? The little fin in the back? Not sure why that was even important, but somehow together it being the LE version was all the things I was wanting, but also willing to put aside to go with a reliable option.

My mom helped me with the downpayment and co-signed, this also helped a ton. I paid each and every month, usually, I paid more in an attempt to get it done with.

I drove that ’99 Toyota Corolla for 16yrs.

I used to joke it was old enough to drive itself.

I think the most beautiful part was what the car did to help reset my nervous system, and to teach me, that really cars are here to be reliable…that’s normal. You should expect your car to work and get you from point A to point B.

It’s actually not normal to be nervous the whole time, wondering whether you can count on your car.

Up until that point, I didn’t trust that I could depend on a vehicle, at a time I was really trying to establish my independence, worked full-time and definitely needed reliability. So, thank you Toyota for releasing that very reliable version of the Corolla. Someone told me shortly after I got it, that they had been at a Toyota convention and that my car would easily push 300k and that the marketing they were pushing was besides oil changes, this was NOT a high maintenance car. If it weren’t for oil changes you shouldn’t need to raise the hood for the first 100k miles.

When life gets busy or intense you want to rely on your car and not need to continually put effort into it. So many lessons in life…and sometimes, we have our own idea of what we are worthy of, or what we can accept…

What a beautiful thing it is when something unexpectedly comes along and reminds us we are deserving of better. What has come into your life to help heal parts of you that has begun to accept what shouldn’t be normal, as normal?

This entry took a totally unexpected turn, but I like it…and I LOVED that car, so healing…. she was even hit by a deer once and kept me safe! Then, I was out of town for a month or so, and a family of mice moved into the engine and started chewing things…she wasn’t as reliable after that, but proof again, what happens to you can make a big difference in the nature vs nurture viewpoint

Pura Vida,

~Cheryl