Good-bye Charlie

I just watched a very nice man hook up Charlie, my 2000 Toyota Echo, to his tow-truck and take him away. Charlie is getting donated to KQED's vehicle donation program. He's been struggling some in recent years. He's only 9, but I've used him hard. He's been shuddering at stop signs and cutting out mysteriously, so it recently became clear that it was time to let him go. 

Charlie was not my first car, but he might as well have been. I got him when I was 22, and he's seen me through a lot - bad relationships, good relationships, a whole bunch of moves - pretty much everything that happened in my 20's has Charlie attached to it somehow. I'm no longer the young woman who slapped "Support Your Local Independent Bookstore" onto Charlie's bumper, nor am I the young woman who stuck a red, fuzzy alien with google eyes onto his dashboard. Letting go of Charlie is letting go of that phase of my life, a phase I'm not necessarily sad to see gone, but that I have affection for all the same. This is a little bit sad. 

Still, Charlie gave me the best years of his vehicular life, and I'm grateful to have had him. So, in the words of my grandfather, I'll say "good-bye Charlie" and be content with that.