2. "Have Your Car Break Down In Strategic Places."
A retrospective on wrecks.
Hey! If you’re new and wondering “what the heck is this,” I suggest you check out this intro post. Or you can just dive in below and figure it out. I believe in you!
I live in New York and don’t drive anymore (good for everyone), but when I did, car kerfuffles were frequent and dramatic. On every occasion there was crying. On no occasion did I find a husband. I will not be attempting to manufacture this experience for the project because a) I value life and b) it will likely happen on its own anyways.
Below is an exhaustive list of the strategic places where my car has broken down.
**If you are an insurance company, please STOP reading!!!**
Outside of the Maple Theatre in Michigan.
A classic case of “he said, she said.” She (me) said that the car was faulty, he (the gas station receipt) said that I put diesel in the engine.
The entrance to I-95.
A left turn took me right into oncoming traffic. The car was towed to a repair shop, and the passengers (four petrified 19-year-olds) were ushered into the back of a fire truck and dropped at a Wendy’s by a crew of aggressively attractive firemen.
The middle of Venice Blvd in Los Angeles.
Another left turn gone wrong. This one ended with a smoking Chevy Cruze and a hand the size of a medium grapefruit. My rescuers were two guy friends who kindly brought me back to their apartment so I could soak my hand in a bucket of ice and cry before heading to the emergency room. A night at Cedars Sinai followed, complete with X-rays, MRIs, pudding cups, and a very hot doctor. I was hoping he’d find my swollen hand sexy, but unfortunately it was just “medically concerning.”
A shoulder off the 101 at 1:00am.
I was driving home from a late night at work and got a flat halfway between Valencia and West Hollywood. After 20 minutes of sobbing on the phone to the good people of Amy’s 24-Hour Auto, I put my hazards on and drove at a speed of 5 miles per hour to the nearest body shop. They patched the hole in my tire, but not the one in my heart.
A golf course in Sag Harbor.
It was off-season in the Hamptons and my tee time was 20 minutes to never. My friend Kate, a dog, and I had hoped to hike but a rogue nail had other plans. We paced in anxious circles until AAA arrived. The mechanic put a donut where the ruined tire had been and said “Handle with care,” which is the same thing I told an ex before he broke up with me.
Somewhere in Michigan, Christmastime.
I was speeding across the state, heading home for the holidays. Like the beginning of a direct-to-cable rom-com, a blizzard hit and sent my car skidding into a snowbank. Though our exteriors were unscathed, neither the car nor I were emotionally stable enough to finish the drive that night. I wound up at a B&B run by a quirky woman named Ethel. Ethel sent me to the local dive, where I ate dinner and chatted up the bartender Cal, who was also the owner, who was also a volunteer at the animal shelter (when not busy chopping wood). Cal proved to a jaded city girl that small town life is beautiful. We kissed :)
What I have described is essentially the plot of Virgin River, which is what I binged while actually staying in a highway motel that would make Norman Bates jealous. The view from my window was a 15-foot-tall Trump banner and the only restaurant in town was a gas station. I know, romantic. Where’s that movie?
A Quick Reflection
It’s been a little over a week since I launched this Substack, and the reactions have been overwhelmingly positive. I’ve received messages of encouragement, acknowledgements of inspiration, and eighteen marriage proposals. Even so, the launch has been absolutely terrifying and incredibly emotional. I think it’s partly because in sharing this writing and these feelings publicly, this project became a little less my own. For months this list has been my secret solace, these essays my therapy. Opening the story up to others takes away a bit of that private peace.
Yet still, I feel compelled - and excited - to write about it all. But if I were to share EVERYTHING, this would be a full-blown novel (@publishers). So instead I offer snippets of larger stories, like the following anecdote.
A few weeks ago, I was telling a group of people about the project when one guy blurted out, “How funny would it be if you do all 129 things and still end up alone?”
LOL. HILARIOUS!
We laughed and the conversation moved on, but I didn’t. Something about that question - the callous way it was phrased, the immediate instinct to make someone’s journey a joke - it hurt way more than I was able to admit.
Often being single in a phase of life when most of your people are partnered can feel like being the odd one out. You are different from the pack: a Circus performer, the Court Jester, an animal on display at the Zoo. And don’t get me wrong, it can be fun to entertain the masses with sitcom-worthy dating drama. Hell, it can be fun to have the dating drama. But the entertainment gets old and the game gets exhausting. As the token single friend, life can feel like a show where at the end of the night the audience goes home but you are stuck in the ring, no choice but to wake up the next day and do the act over again.
And so reflecting on that “funny” comment, all I can think is that yes, in many ways this project is simply more smoke and mirrors. In writing my experiences and putting them out into the world, I am a self-fulfilling prophecy, making myself into a spectacle eager to be seen.
I’m okay with that. These essays are supposed to be humorous, and weird, and open-ended.
What I’m not okay with being made into a punchline. To suggest that at upon completion of this list I still end up “alone” implies that the best ending to this story is one in which the protagonist moves heaven and earth to find her community, her partner, herself, and the whole ordeal is an utter failure.
When all 129 things are completed, I won’t be “ending up” anywhere. Single, taken, partnered, stranded on the side of a highway on hold with AAA… none of these are destinations. There will always be #130.
One Final Thought: When Car Accidents Work
In searching for evidence of car accidents past, I stumbled upon the below text message. It’s from my friend Sara, who has an even more impressive roster of car crashes than I do.
While the car accidents didn’t lead her directly to her person, the eye-opening experience that came with several near death experiences did. Sara married her now-wife Lizzy this August. Food for thought!