Letting Go

It's been a very busy and very interesting fall, this 2010. I was in the vicinity of something that sounds like urban legend but was true. Anish, a coworker who manages our east coast channel partners, dropped out of communication. It took a couple days for his closest cowrker at HQ to start asking around, as he is quite good at returning calls and emails, even with a very heavy travel schedule. She raised the alarm after 3 days, notified our HR director, who called out to the east coast and his emergency contacts, then the police. Who found him, quite dead, in his apartment. Sudden, unexpected, natural causes. He was 39. Wow. I was getting to know him, he was a great guy with a fun, dry sense of humor and was super at his job. In addition to the shock, a few of us geared up and took over his planned events. That is what had me in the northeast in early November. So, weird, part of life, and another reminder that life is not to be taken for granted.

I have been letting go of a lot of old patterns of thought that are no longer serving me. And things, too. The biggest being my car. I loved my car, but it was starting to need a lot of maintenance. I'd had it for 15 years; shipped it as a gift to my brother in Rochester when I moved out of the country. When I moved to Rochester a couple years later he gave it back to me. I went through a lot of changes with that car and while we were both in Rochester, derived comfort from it's familarity as a lot was changing in my life. When I finally moved back to California, I brought it too. But, this fall, I really struggled with deciding what to do with it - spend the money on maintenance on a 15 year old car, or get a new one? I talked it out with a couple of friends, the pros and cons of getting rid of it, and thinking about getting rid of it really upset me. I finally realized it was the only tangible, day to day evidence of my life before all the changes started. I was hanging on way past reasonableness. And, it helped me out, generous to the end, by failing to start one day. Got that fixed, and 8 weeks later it did it again. That did it, I couldn't count on it being reliable anymore. Time to get a new car.

During all this was the big fall travels, and my thoughts processing slowly. Maybe due to tirednes of the travel, or this time of year, but the car died again on Nov 22nd. Oh yeah, there was also surgery on the 19th that month - mouth work - that may have contributed to my general fuzziness (ya think?) I was loaned a vehicle - didn't even think clearly enough to ask but sent an email saying my car had died, I needed to rent a car so couldn't join my friend for breakfast, and she replied, "Ya want to borrow my truck?" My brain was flooded with the thought - that's exactly what I want! Yay! (and thank you, again, Renee!)

A week later, I bought my current car. I'd driven a bunch of cars during all my work travels, and even had test-driven some of the gorgeous Nissan Zs. Love how they drive, but they are too small to be my only car. I had driven a Mazda 3 in Phoenix, really liked it. Did a little research, including talking with Kimberly who has a Madza 3 also. As she says, "I have zoom zoom and I'm not afraid to use it!" So here are pics of Ruby: