I sold my car on Wednesday. I put it on Craigslist on Sunday, received lots of interest, and sold it to the second person who came by to take a look. It was a 2006 Subaru Legacy with a manual 5-speed and about 125,000 miles. 

It had been in three (albeit minor) accidents. One when I backed into an old, chrome-bumpered truck in a downtown parking lot, leaving a distinctive (glass half full) dent in the plastic rear bumper. One when a kid pulled out in front of me while coming over the hill in front of Full Moon Farm on Gilman Road. It is very difficult to stop driving downhill on a dry, dusty dirt road. I T-boned this guy. I think it was a Corolla. It did a lot of damage to his passenger door, wheel-well, and front wheel/suspension. It left some green paint on my front bumper and bent up my license plate. I got his insurance info, along with an eyewitness account from Dave Zuckerman (farmer, silo-dweller, lieutenant governor), but I didn't even bother to get it looked at. The third time, this one wasn't great, I went off the road this past winter driving up a very icy hill, (the big hill, you know the one) on Silver Street heading north into Hinesburg. One thing about all wheel drive, fishtailing is possible. The back end got away from me and I slid into the roadside ditch, stopping with the help of a culvert to my front left tire. No damage done to me or my mom, but we had to get towed out and the drive out on the doughnut. Not ideal. 

But really it was in good shape. I had all the service records. It was inspected and prepped for sale. Some rust at the bottom of the doors, and some more underneath, but that's Vermont. So what if it wasn't washed for five years. The buyer should get several if not five good years out of it.

I made sure to take notice as it left the driveway for the last time. The other times I have sold cars my feeling was mostly 'good riddance'.  It's different this time. I don't have a new car to be excited about. The excitement of the new doesn't blind me to the loss of the old. 

I bought that car in April of 2008. I was commuting to Montpelier and my Audi wasn't up for it. I wanted a simple, reliable everyday car with all wheel drive and decent gas mileage. And I wanted a manual transmission. That last part made my search much more difficult. Boring mid-size sedans can be hard to find in a manual. Almost impossible in 2019. 

I had to drive to Massachusetts to buy a two year old car with about 25,000 miles. I didn't get to drive it home that day, but I remember coming out to the parking lot at National Life to watch it roll in. It wasn't new, but it was the first thing I bought that made me feel like, I don't want to say it made me feel like an adult because that wasn't it, but it made me feel like I could afford something nice. Something that wasn't constantly breaking down. Something I had to take a loan out to buy. For me, it was much more of an 'I made it' moment than anything before and probably since.

My mom asked me if I even knew what I would buy if I were replacing my car. I've many times talked about how I'd looked at this car or that car online. Upon seeing a wide variety of cars, (I'm using 'cars' here as a catch-all) very often I say things like "I like it, but I wouldn't buy one," sometimes followed by "unless I had two or three cars". The best example of this is a Jeep Wrangler. So she had assumed I wouldn't know what I wanted. A very safe bet in this hypothetical situation.

But I do know. I would go to Shearer Volkswagen and buy the Great Falls Green Metallic GTI SE. They have that. On the lot. That's the one with black leather and a panoramic sunroof, (I don't really care about the leather, in fact I would almost prefer the Clark plaid cloth from the S model, but the sunroof is a must.) And a 6-speed manual. And a 228-horsepower turbo-4. And good gas mileage along with hatchback practicality. I admit that I would have to see the color in person; screens can be deceiving. 

I almost want to go take a look. But I dream.