Elegy for a First Car (take one)

[This little scribble has many edits in store. But I need to start somewhere, and I think the time has come.]

You were my father's decision.
I didn't think I'd like you much at first
because teenage stubbornness wanted me to make
these choices for myself.
But he liked your reputation for safety
and he knew me well back then.

You gave me a way out of the things
I didn't want--my hometown, my dorm life,
my endless store of feelings.
You took me where I needed to go
and brought me back when I was ready.

I wasn't always nice to you.
I made it difficult to maintain
a relationship when you seemed
to be the one to get all the bruises.
You always cleaned up nicely and came out
with a little more character than you had before.

You connected me consistently between
my first home and the second. We made
that drive so many times I thought that you
could do it on your own. I blew your ears
out with my music, but you never complained.

You dug a trench for me so I could crawl
my way out of the rubble. Before I knew it,
all I had left of you were the mud stains
on my jeans and the things I used to hang
from the mirror. They threw all your parts
inside you like a junk-shop heap.
I guess that's what you looked like to them.

I wasn't ready to lose you, but
I guess that didn't matter.
It was bound to happen eventually.
Still, I'd hoped to show you my third home
and share it with some friends. Losing you
has made things complicated, and all the more
painful that you will be replaced.

Perhaps I'm too sentimental, but no one
seems to understand how much you mattered.
I shared you with the most important people
in a very significant six-year span of my life,
pregnant with memories of new passengers
and others very familiar. I will not get
them back again.

I still need time to grieve you properly,
but posting this at the exact one-week anniversary
of when I think we lost you seems as good a start
as any. Consider this the beginning
of my way to say, "Goodbye, Jeep."