To my core, I am a planner.
I spend too much money on fresh agendas at the beginning of
every school year. I extensively research every restaurant I plan to eat at
while on vacation. I schedule date nights with friends at least two weeks in advance.
So when it was brought to my attention that my 2008 Nissan
Sentra needed a couple thousand bucks worth of maintenance and replacements,
let’s just say that I was not
prepared.
I’ve spent the last week walking in and out of car
dealerships by myself. I feel like I’m back in my networking days with all of
the “warm lead” calls I’ve been subjected to in the last 72 hours. I’ve
researched and haggled, and researched and haggled some more. It is, indeed, a
grueling process.
And I am exhausted.
But strangely enough, it feels good to be doing this on my
own. Not just with my own money (okay, that part doesn’t feel THAT good), but
visiting dealerships on my own, test driving on my own, not giving into
salespeople’s shit on my own. It’s a learning process, and I think we can
always be thankful for a chance to learn about ourselves and what kind of
person we are capable of being.
Just a little reminder that “unexpected” doesn’t necessarily
mean “bad.” I’m not exactly thrilled to be dishing out some extra change each
month, but it will feel good to feel safe in my own vehicle, which I haven’t in
awhile. I was banking on ol’ Bessie Blue (my car…) to get me through the next
two years of graduate school, but sometimes things don’t work out the way you
planned. And that's okay.
