Just for Me

Well, I did it.  I bought a new car.  Months of online research, envious glances at the lane next to me in traffic and window shopping in parking lots have finally ended.  This last week was brutal--filled with appraisals, credit checks and negotiations with slick and worse yet, condescending salesmen.  (No one, not even independent me, recommends car shopping alone--and yet, time after time, I enter the lion's den.)

Whatever brave front showed on the outside, anxiety filled my days and nights as I thought about the significant financial commitment that I would once again be taking on.  But all that is behind me.  I do not have buyer's remorse.  All is right with the world; I own a Honda once again.

I purchased my first Honda early in the fall of 2001.  I never should have traded it in December 2008.  I don't know what I was thinking.  I was a new mom.  It was winter.  I was looking for something with more safety features.  That's what I was thinking.  I guess.  It's all kind of fuzzy.  I went into the Hyundai dealership to get a Tuscon and came home with a navy blue, 4 cylinder base model Sonata.  Although I remember enjoying the 3 month free trial of XM radio and was grateful for the safety features as I drove my infant to and from daycare during that icy winter, I never loved that car. 

The Sonata aged very quickly, inside and out.  Within 6 months, it was nothing special and I still had 54 months of payments left.  (The only thing good about the car was that I had secured 0% financing.)  I will confess to always purchasing new cars, fully aware of the ridiculous depreciation but even more fully aware of my dependence on reliable, no fail, transportation. 

Typically I keep my cars for at least two years after I have finished paying for them.  So why did I trade my Hyundai for a Honda after just 4 years, 8 months?  Because I needed something just for me.  I needed something that made me happy as I carried out all the "have to's" in my life right now.  Some moms can go to the day spa, get massages, have a pedicure, go to a movie, join a book club, etc.  All of that is out of reach for me.  I don't have evening/weekend childcare.  Basically, if I'm not at work, I'm with my children and they are with me.  At the grocery store.  In the bathroom.  At the $8 haircut place.  In my bed (mysteriously after I have placed them in their own).   Next to the tomatoes as I water them.   At the mailbox (even though they nod their little heads when I say, "stay right here, I'm just going to get the mail")...

I love my kids.  I'll miss them when we all go back to school in one week.  But being with them and only them 24/7 isn't a cakewalk.  Circumstances that arose this summer showed me that things will probably get more difficult when it comes to being and doing everything for everyone in my family.  I can avoid some extended family issues, but not all of them.

So I needed something just for me.  Just for me as I drive from home to the town where Henry's kindergarten is located and then to another town for work.  Just for me as I reverse that commute nine hours later.  Just for me as I try to squeeze in all of Liam's preschool events in yet another town.  Just for me as I run to Target for the third time in three days.  Just for me as I drive, and drive, and drive.

I narrowed the field of fun family cars down to two.  I went back and forth for months*.  Six passengers, or five?  Sliding doors or not?  Dealer financing or credit union?  Pre-driven late model or brand new?  I practically pre-drove myself crazy with worry over making the wrong (or any) decision.  

I'm very happy with the decision I made but mostly I'm relieved that I can stop thinking about all of this.  I'm also glad I never have to see that wolf in sheep's clothing of a salesman.  Every time I called him on a sales trick, he got nasty.  Verbally and once, in an email.  Did I mention that I work with his mother?  Oh, my gosh, Henry and Liam can grow up to be anything they want, but please, please don't let them sell cars.





*but never about color.  Newsflash, sleazy salesmen, women buyers don't care about color as much as you think they do.  They care about a fair out the door price.  Oh, and most of us are really good at math.