Good-bye, Civic.

As usual, it's been a while. I should have had more free time to write since it's the summer, but I have not felt motivated between planning and grading for the 10 days of the 5 week summer course I'm teaching, running after the kids, enjoying time with them, and other adventures. I have a lot to update about, but I will start with the most recent adventure: selling my 2007 Civic and purchasing a pre-owned, certified, 65K-on-the-odometer 2010 Odyssey.

My dear husband and I have been talking about purchasing a van for the past few years, with the acknowledgement that I would likely have to sell my Civic. With the trade-in of his 2008 Corolla for his new 2012 Camry a few months ago, it became clear that my Civic would be the car to be sold when we did decide to buy a van. I wanted to prolong this process for as long as possible, because I loved my car as much as I could like any inanimate object.

Chris is the one who convinced me to purchase a car in the first place, not long after we became engaged. So in September 2007, after I started my first ever teaching position, we went to the Honda dealership to look at cars. I knew I liked the Prius, but it was out of my price range. I decided that instead of a Corolla, which my dad had, I wanted to try the Civic. I found the car in atomic blue, the only one on the lot. Before the test drive, I wanted it to be my first car. After the test drive, I really wanted it to be my first car. However long later, I purchased it and have driven it ever since.

Therefore, I was torn yesterday when the same Honda dealer was having a sale. We had been getting information about the trade-in value of my vehicle for months, obviously it was slowly decreasing in value so I was somewhat convinced to get the best out of my 9,000 miles-per-year vehicle, we should purchase within the year anyway. So yesterday morning we did the additional research on vehicle options, and possibly found a good deal there. At that moment, I realized that I strongly did not want to part with my Civic. Immediately, I also realized that I should not be attached to things I own. I should be attached to them in-so-much-as I own them, use them for a certain purpose, and should take care of them, but I should be able to surrender them if I no longer need them. On a similar note, this is what I come back to time and time again with donating clothing, toys, and anything else in my household.

So I did some more research to reassure me in my decision to go look and likely purchase a van, called my mother who agreed to watch the kids, dropped them off, and continued on our way to the Honda dealership. After walking around, comparing price points of the five options available, we decided to pursue the two pre-owned options we found online: the 2010 dark blue Odyssey and the light blue/teal Town & Country. The latter was a winner with the price, but the interior was ugly and uncomfortable so it lost out to the Odyssey, whose downsides were the comparably higher price (lower than similar models with less features) and the current mileage. Chris wasn't too concerned about the mileage so I decided we could jump in and I would accept the trade-in of my vehicle for the price we were looking for to finance.

Hours later (we were at Honda for 5 hours total, mostly made up of the especially slow paperwork process), we loaded the car seats, stroller, random stuff in the trunk, CDs, and other things into the Odyssey. While we were finishing up, a woman who was also purchasing a car almost the entire time we were at the dealership (whose shorts I admired the whole time) came out to talk to me while we were transferring stuff. We had a short conversation about how she saw her younger self in me: she had a Civic, had kids, needed more room, and sold her Civic for an Odyssey. However and now that her three kids were older, she was getting a smaller car for herself while keeping the van for practical reasons. It was a nice conversation, because she agreed with me that it was hard to part with the Civic. At that point, she headed inside and I said goodbye to my pretty Civic.

As one of my friends said on Facebook, "You know you're a mom when [you buy a van]!"