Friday 21 November 2014

VW BUG

I loved my car.  My VW Beetle.  My Bug.  My Platinum Grey Bug.
I say 'loved', I speak in the past tense, as the other week I was forced to sell her.  I say 'her' as I had named her.  I named her 'Scout'.  I named her after the narrator in 'To Kill A Mockingbird'.  I had to sell her as I hadn't driven her.  I hadn't driven her in the last c. six months due to my poor balance and poor spatial awareness, which are only getting worse.  My poor balance and my poor spatial awareness due to my MS.
The DVLA returned my driving licence the other week, I'd had to send it off to be reviewed (my licence is only issued for a fixed period of three years), and after about three months I had it returned and renewed for another three years.  So technically I am legal and road worthy.  I had a driving test about a year ago at work to enable me to drive the fleet vehicles, and I passed that and they didn't raise any concerns about my ability to drive.  But, so much has happened in a year, and I know in my heart of hearts that although I have my licence that I am at an increased risk of having an accident and this is a risk that I cannot take.
The decision to sell my car, to sell 'Scout' however was not a decision that I took lightly; and was not a decision that I wanted to make at all.  I didn't want to sell her.  I really didn't want to sell her.  It broke my heart; it really honestly, absolutely broke my heart.  To watch someone drive away in Scout, knowing that she was no longer mine and wasn't coming back, was utterly utterly heart-breaking. and Yes, I did I sobbed.  I sobbed for about three days.  I have tears welling now just thinking about it.  It seems so fucking unfair.
But, as much as I loved the car, it isn't so much the car, as the car is an inanimate object, but it is everything that she represented.  My Freedom.  My Independence.  They are gone.  So, now as well as 'mourning' the loss of my health, I am 'mourning' the loss of 'Scout; and am 'mourning' the loss of the Freedom and the loss of my Independence that Scout afforded me.
And we had some adventures.  Blimey did we have some adventures.  Up to Newcastle.  Over to Wales.  Down to Southampton.  Up to Liverpool.  Up and down the Country.  We went to visit a friend in AMAZINGstoke.  We went to Oxford.  We went to Cambridge.  We navigated Milton Keynes.  And even with my TERRIBLE sense of direction and inability to Map Read and No SatNav; we still always managed to navigate our way wherever we were going.  Adventures aplenty.
I did, I loved my car and I hope that she brings as much joy and as much pleasure to her new owner that she bought to me.  She enriched my life immeasurably and I will always look back on happy memories of owning my bug.

No comments:

Post a Comment