Some time back I made a decision that I have not been happy with, at all, ever since. I sold my truck. Melanie and I had decided to sell it to help out with some of our bills, but I "knew" that it was a bad decision for me at least...I wanted to help cover some of the bills, but the truck has been reliable and a great vehicle for me. Plus it has given me some freedom. For some reason I "need" a vehicle to feel free, instead of stuck. I know that this is just victim mentality, but it is the way that I have felt. So I was reflecting back on this decision and the subsequent ones made because of it, and thought, how can I let go of these feelings, how can I rid myself of the cancer that is plaguing me? Before I get to that part, I will share the whole story so that you can at least see where I am coming from.
I sold my truck, we paid our bills, yahoo. I have a job that is catching us up on things and we decided that I deserved a new mode of transportation before school starts. So I find a 1992 VW Golf that looks really cool and we travel up to Spokane as a family. I drove the car around the block and it felt a little rough but figured that it would all work out.
I buy the car and go to fuel up the car before driving back home the 2.5 hours that it will take. So of course while fueling the car I shut the door, forgetting that the guy who owned the car previously decided to shave the door handles and not put in another way to get into the car instead. I had just locked myself out of my own car even though I had a key to the car. I go to open the rear hatch and the push button doesn't work. After about 10 minutes I figure out how to get into the car. Shh it's still a secret.
We head over to get some oil because it is leaking pretty badly, so I pick up 12 quarts. Okay it isn't a pretty bad leak, it is more like a sieve. We start going and make it about 2 minutes down the road and I look back in the mirror and notice Melanie waving me over. Only moments before that there was smoke that was starting to come into the car, smoking Josh and I out. I pull over and she says there is a huge pool draining behind you. I look and sure enough, on the hill going down is a steam from the car. I open the hood and turn the car on again and notice that the car is SHOOTING gas out of the engine, I find the leak and fix it...a hose had come loose. We start going again and the smoke is getting pretty bad, and then goes away, must have been left over gas burning up. (I named her Night Fury after this episode).
We make it out to the freeway and I think, oh good we are finally on our way, as I try to accelerate the car gets more and more sluggish and so I pull over again, (we aren't really even off of the on ramp yet), open the hood and there is antifreeze shooting out of the car now that it is warm enough. I decide that the best thing to do is leave the car there and go and get a tow strap to tow the thing home. So we head over to Walmart (thank goodness for phones with GPS, remember I don't know this town and have never been here before) to pick up a tow strap. I grab the wrong one but don't realize it till I get out to the car and start going. I go back in return the thing and get the right one. So it has now probably taken me about 20 - 40 minutes since we left the other car. We are now ready to be heading home.
We go out to the freeway and there is no car there. The car has been stolen...or something, I call the police and they tell me that they have impounded the car, apparently there are immediate tow away zones and I happened to find one of them. I call the tow shop and they are closed and it will cost an extra $80 or so to get the car now, on top of whatever the fee was going to be.
I had brought up a little extra from our account, based on a feeling that Melanie had had. But all of the rest of the money from that account was exhausted. I had an emergency account with plenty of money in it, but since it was an emergency money account we didn't want immediate access to it, we figured that 3 days would be plenty of time to get to it, so there was no debit card attached to it and it was a local credit union 2+ hours away...Clearly we hadn't thought that one through all the way. This is probably a good time to mention that Melanie actually didn't want to come up, she said it just didn't feel right, but we decided that if we came up and it still didn't feel right we wouldn't buy the car. By this point we had already bypassed that point and owned the car...Some things I just like learning the hard way, you know having a doctorate degree in the school of hard knocks.
So it is getting late and the kids are hungry and we decide to stay the night...if we can find a place that will take cash and only about $50 because that is all we would have to pay after the other fees. We find a little place that has a queen bed and a continental breakfast for that much and they are willing to take cash if we put a card on file, so we did that. We had a great time there and jumped on the bed and sang songs and read stories. We also grabbed some food for tomorrow, the motel had a fridge and microwave, so it worked out really well. The next day we decided to go around town and see what there was after checking out the situation for the car.
The tow place was really nice and told me that I had better not tow strap the car home as that was a $500 fine, she recommended that I find someone to assist me with that. Since I worked for a car dealership I called them to see if they would have room on one of their trucks coming back from Spokane, they did and it was only going to cost about $100 to do that so I was excited. I thought that this is all going to work out. The lady called me back and told me that the car had to be running and working for them to do that, I thought okay, I will just go and get the car on and we will be fine. The car wouldn't start now. So I had to find a different way for the car that would be known as Night Fury, it is black and smoked and shot out gas instead of fire. I finally found another way that would work but it was going to cost me $250 to get it home instead. I got that all arranged and the impound place didn't charge any extra for keeping the car there a couple of extra days so that was nice.
We went around Spokane and found some really fun things to do there with the kids. We really had a great time, we found a Ginormous Radio Flyer red wagon to play on where the handle was a huge slide for all of us to go down. We had such a great time spending time as a family going up there. We even went and got Froyo Yogurt or something like that, and really enjoyed that time there. It was stressful the night before trying to get everything to work out.
So I have learned a couple of things from this experience that I would like to share. First when your wife says she has a bad feeling about something, there may be a reason for it. Even if you don't listen, things will always work out, and may provide you with some much needed family time, even if it is "forced." We would have been better off following her promptings because now I have a car, that if it had worked, it would have been a good price, but now since I have added an extra $500+ and it doesn't work...doesn't seem like such a good price for the car, I don't think that there is a way that I could sell it for even what I bought it for, since it isn't running.
The main point of this article though is this: Is it possible to let go of what has happened in the past?, and then I think an appropriate follow up question is can I now move forward and not get stuck from that experience? So my own answers are yes it is possible to let go of the past and even possible to not get stuck. We get to learn and grow, and let go and know.
As a follow up for this, I was able to sell the car recently to a young man and his father for $100 less than I originally bought the car for. So yes I am out the $600, however that was worth it for the family experience that we got to have in Spokane, and the lesson learned in this purchase. What a great experience to get to go through and learn all kinds of fun things.
I buy the car and go to fuel up the car before driving back home the 2.5 hours that it will take. So of course while fueling the car I shut the door, forgetting that the guy who owned the car previously decided to shave the door handles and not put in another way to get into the car instead. I had just locked myself out of my own car even though I had a key to the car. I go to open the rear hatch and the push button doesn't work. After about 10 minutes I figure out how to get into the car. Shh it's still a secret.
We head over to get some oil because it is leaking pretty badly, so I pick up 12 quarts. Okay it isn't a pretty bad leak, it is more like a sieve. We start going and make it about 2 minutes down the road and I look back in the mirror and notice Melanie waving me over. Only moments before that there was smoke that was starting to come into the car, smoking Josh and I out. I pull over and she says there is a huge pool draining behind you. I look and sure enough, on the hill going down is a steam from the car. I open the hood and turn the car on again and notice that the car is SHOOTING gas out of the engine, I find the leak and fix it...a hose had come loose. We start going again and the smoke is getting pretty bad, and then goes away, must have been left over gas burning up. (I named her Night Fury after this episode).
We make it out to the freeway and I think, oh good we are finally on our way, as I try to accelerate the car gets more and more sluggish and so I pull over again, (we aren't really even off of the on ramp yet), open the hood and there is antifreeze shooting out of the car now that it is warm enough. I decide that the best thing to do is leave the car there and go and get a tow strap to tow the thing home. So we head over to Walmart (thank goodness for phones with GPS, remember I don't know this town and have never been here before) to pick up a tow strap. I grab the wrong one but don't realize it till I get out to the car and start going. I go back in return the thing and get the right one. So it has now probably taken me about 20 - 40 minutes since we left the other car. We are now ready to be heading home.
We go out to the freeway and there is no car there. The car has been stolen...or something, I call the police and they tell me that they have impounded the car, apparently there are immediate tow away zones and I happened to find one of them. I call the tow shop and they are closed and it will cost an extra $80 or so to get the car now, on top of whatever the fee was going to be.
I had brought up a little extra from our account, based on a feeling that Melanie had had. But all of the rest of the money from that account was exhausted. I had an emergency account with plenty of money in it, but since it was an emergency money account we didn't want immediate access to it, we figured that 3 days would be plenty of time to get to it, so there was no debit card attached to it and it was a local credit union 2+ hours away...Clearly we hadn't thought that one through all the way. This is probably a good time to mention that Melanie actually didn't want to come up, she said it just didn't feel right, but we decided that if we came up and it still didn't feel right we wouldn't buy the car. By this point we had already bypassed that point and owned the car...Some things I just like learning the hard way, you know having a doctorate degree in the school of hard knocks.
So it is getting late and the kids are hungry and we decide to stay the night...if we can find a place that will take cash and only about $50 because that is all we would have to pay after the other fees. We find a little place that has a queen bed and a continental breakfast for that much and they are willing to take cash if we put a card on file, so we did that. We had a great time there and jumped on the bed and sang songs and read stories. We also grabbed some food for tomorrow, the motel had a fridge and microwave, so it worked out really well. The next day we decided to go around town and see what there was after checking out the situation for the car.
The tow place was really nice and told me that I had better not tow strap the car home as that was a $500 fine, she recommended that I find someone to assist me with that. Since I worked for a car dealership I called them to see if they would have room on one of their trucks coming back from Spokane, they did and it was only going to cost about $100 to do that so I was excited. I thought that this is all going to work out. The lady called me back and told me that the car had to be running and working for them to do that, I thought okay, I will just go and get the car on and we will be fine. The car wouldn't start now. So I had to find a different way for the car that would be known as Night Fury, it is black and smoked and shot out gas instead of fire. I finally found another way that would work but it was going to cost me $250 to get it home instead. I got that all arranged and the impound place didn't charge any extra for keeping the car there a couple of extra days so that was nice.
We went around Spokane and found some really fun things to do there with the kids. We really had a great time, we found a Ginormous Radio Flyer red wagon to play on where the handle was a huge slide for all of us to go down. We had such a great time spending time as a family going up there. We even went and got Froyo Yogurt or something like that, and really enjoyed that time there. It was stressful the night before trying to get everything to work out.So I have learned a couple of things from this experience that I would like to share. First when your wife says she has a bad feeling about something, there may be a reason for it. Even if you don't listen, things will always work out, and may provide you with some much needed family time, even if it is "forced." We would have been better off following her promptings because now I have a car, that if it had worked, it would have been a good price, but now since I have added an extra $500+ and it doesn't work...doesn't seem like such a good price for the car, I don't think that there is a way that I could sell it for even what I bought it for, since it isn't running.
The main point of this article though is this: Is it possible to let go of what has happened in the past?, and then I think an appropriate follow up question is can I now move forward and not get stuck from that experience? So my own answers are yes it is possible to let go of the past and even possible to not get stuck. We get to learn and grow, and let go and know.
As a follow up for this, I was able to sell the car recently to a young man and his father for $100 less than I originally bought the car for. So yes I am out the $600, however that was worth it for the family experience that we got to have in Spokane, and the lesson learned in this purchase. What a great experience to get to go through and learn all kinds of fun things.
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