Decisions & Dreams

My car died yesterday, or at least, it died for all practical purposes. It has been giving me trouble for about a week, growing worse until I took it to the car doctor. Driving there I was praying the whole way not to have it die on the side of the road, and that it would be a simple, inexpensive fix.

Well, it wasn't. They took my keys, rode Goochie (my car) around, hooked her up to something, and told me my transmission was in its final moments of life--this information coming the day before I begin something of a 15 day roadtrip. wow.

I don't have money to fix my transmission. Do you know they are ridiculously expensive? (or at least, they are for those of us with small paychecks, student debt, and too many bills...) Furthermore, I don't have a credit card, because I don't want to live on credit. I have enough invisible binds on me as is; why would I want a card that would tempt me to *unwittingly* bind myself more? Now I know why I should at least have one, though. For emergencies.

So I could try buying a car. Because my roadtrip really isn't cancellable--my sister is getting married and I need to be there. That only involves applying for credit, taking out another loan, and paying all my extra money into that loan over the next four years of my life.

Frankly, the car (actually, Ford Escape) offered me was a really good deal. And maybe I am childish not to take it. But I do not want to bind myself for four years, not to mention binding myself in such a way that I would hardly be able to appreciate the fact that I had a new car. What's the point, if you can't afford to go anywhere?

And the fact is... the money spent on a new car (when I was *planning* to sell mine in a year, anyways) would be taken from my savings for a boat (which I was *planning* to buy asap). And I know that the boat is just a dream and the car is my reality, but I want that dream to come true, and I am the only way it can happen. If I don't believe in it, who will? People struggle enough with their own dreams; they don't go around making any little nobody's dream come true, especially when the nobody's aren't somebody for being such a nobody.

So someone else lent me their credit card, and I will re-pay them over the next few months, and then I will be free to continue following my dream unfettered by payments for a car i didn't want. Maybe refiguring a transmission in an old car isn't smart. I don't know. But if its the clearest way to a dream i have right now, however nonsensical the dream is, at least I still have my dream, and at least i know the value of it to me now; its worth more than a car and more than my own transportation in the meanwhile. Because I realised that I would rather be car-less for a year than give up the possibility of tomorrow.

As it is, I will only be one day behind in my roadtrip and one transmission behind in my savings. Maybe that's not too bad.