A couple weeks ago, I read “The Journey,” written by Tammy at Notes from the Homefront. In it, she chronicles her recent trip to the car dealership to trade in her minivan, and she reflects on the transition in her life the change in her vehicle represents. (Click over and read the post, she explains it much more eloquently than I can.)
The post really resonated with me. What stuck with me most was the ending – her excitement about what the future holds made me feel optimistic about my future as well.
Then on Sunday I went for a long walk down a quiet country road, all by myself, trying to become reacquainted with my own thoughts (and perhaps burn a few calories. Whichever came first.). I dreamed up lots of good ideas (just ask Jenny – I was texting them to her as they occurred to me) and one of them was that Andy and I should buy a new car. We’d had our two Toyotas for eight and 10 years respectively, and while neither had any huge mechanical issues, they both had upwards of 170,000 miles on them. Our Camry, in particular, was old and noisy and beat up. However, we didn’t have a reason to replace either of them.
It was about the time I was texting my dad wondering how I could arrange for our car to get hit by a school bus that I started to think – what are we waiting for? Our Camry was 10 years old. If we buy a new car today and drive it for 10 more years, I thought to myself, Kate will be sixteen.
As if that thought wasn’t traumatic enough in and of itself, I then realized that Kate was in fact no longer six and that in 10 years she would actually be 18.
I thought back to Tammy’s post and decided there was no time like the present to become a minivan mom.
So we went out and bought this.
One hundred percent necessary? Of course not. One hundred percent worth it? Absolutely.
Because here’s the thing. This time in our lives, this Minivan Moment – it won’t last very long. We need to embrace it, we need to live it.
And then we need to look forward to what comes next.
