auto

This is the kind of car I drive. It's a 2002 Hyundai Accent GS, bright ass red, two doors, hatchback.

JEALOUS?

It's kind of a chick car, it's cute, it's very compact. It's Boots sized, for sure.

I have an unusually significant attachment to my car, but -- then again -- a lot of people do, no?

I didn't get my driver's license until I was 20 years old, as a soon to be junior in college. I had been terrified of operating a motor vehicle for much of my youth. I had nightmares as a child about being abandoned behind the wheel of a moving car. Yes, the thought of driving was horrifying.

I'm not exactly sure why, but I know that I HATE dangerous thrill-seeking type activities. No roller coasters, no horror movies, none of that panicky shit. I have enough panic in my dumb life as is.

Driving was, however, a necessary part of life. Something I entrusted others to do, but not me. I didn't trust myself. Too scary.

I had a borderline traumatizing situation when I was about 15 years old that involved my dad allowing my untrained ass to back my mother's 2000 Nissan Maxima, standard, out of the garage. I had no idea what to do with a clutch and an accelerator and I sent the car speeding in reverse a little ways down a hill into woods and slamming the back end into a tree trunk. It was a bit mangled, but no one was hurt. We did have to tow the car out of the mess I had made.

It was definitely a marked moment in my life that I experienced real danger, real lack of control and high intensity panic. I had been very, very weary to get behind the wheel of any car from that time on.

I finally pulled my shit together and got my driver's license in the summer before my junior year of college, after two years of having my ass carted around by friends to parties, never the sober one, feeling really pathetic that I wasn't independent, that I still politely begged for rides, that people were starting to resent my handicap.

It's coming up on two years behind the wheel, and I am obsessed with driving my car. The feeling is blissful to be in control of a speeding machine and in control of where I'm going and when I'm getting there. But you all know that.

However, I did get into my first real accident. It FUCKING SUCKED. It was totally my fault, too. I was talking on the phone with my dad about important stuff (seriously) and I was going way too fast on Rt. 4 south, approaching a stoplight. Long and short I crammed the front end of my car into the back end of another. The lady was fine (but a bitch) and my car was mashed up badly. The cop made me cry (of course). I drove a rental for two weeks (dope). Now my car is mine again. I felt so bad that I had hurt her. My dad's repair guy pulled massive strings to prevent my darling Accent from being totaled.

+++

My favorite thing to do in my car is sing. It's weird. I'll start by listening to music on my iPod, then I'll come across a song I really like to sing, and before I know it, that damn song is getting the way of my vocals. I get antsy and I want to hear what I sound like. So I'll turn off the stereo and listen the sound of my own voice.

I'm not the best singer. I'm pretty good, though. I can definitely carry a tune, but my chops are shaky, not very strong or controlled. I love singing. And in my car I find myself belting out songs like a fucking diva. It's really, really great. Being able to have that alone time, moving fast, flying down roads, in control. And I'm not scared anymore, not at all. Another irrational fear dominated.