When do you know your summer on the road has come to a close? When your car is stolen.

So many things have changed. Two minutes after walking in from my morning meditation, my friend Gema who I’m staying with in Vancouver walked over to me in the kitchen as I’m pouring my coffee and says in the calmest way she can muster, “Maranda, I’m going to tell you something and I just want you to stay calm . I just went out to get my book from your car… and it’s not there….”. So after the chaos of calling the company responsible for towing on Vancouver’s public streets, walking the block to make sure we weren’t confused about where we parked.It was confirmed that indeed my ten-year-old Toyota Corolla with 255,000 miles on it and my entire life in it was stolen.

Everything is gone. My car, my bike, and my entire world because I have been camping aka living out of my car since May. Thank god for my yoga breath. I have been pretty calm about everything after finding out that the car insurance will cover the blue book value of the car and homeowner’s insurance will cover my bike and everything in the car. That is SUCH a huge relief! I don’t know what I would have done otherwise! Thank you Smith-Rice Insurance! I knew all that bullshitting with Eric and I did at those Canton Chamber of Commerce events would come in handy!

Things can be replaced. The tears and emotion come from the memories associated with everything. The only car that Mitch and I purchased together after getting back from Italy; same for the bike. So many adventures, so much fun! All of our camping gear; the tent my aunt and uncle got us for a wedding gift. The tent and camping gear we were using when Mitch died. The tent we spent our last night together in as two 25-year-old kids; happy, carefree and so in love. It was at this point in my journaling this morning that I literally wrote, “I get it.”

Mitch needs to be only a piece of my life as much as I’ve given him a separate, but still honored part of my heart. I did the work with my stuff in storage earlier this summer on this exact road trip and curated all of my Mitch stuff into one green Rubbermaid tote. Four years worth of love and memories, all crammed into this little box that makes it look like some hoarder’s shit instead of the entirety of my life with Mitch. But that’s the reality of it. I’ve struggled to let go throughout this entire process, it’s common with the loss of a spouse. I loved him, he taught me, unconditional love. He was my husband. And all that past tense means just that past. It’s time to stop wearing Mitch and his memory like a coat of protection with things that remind me of him literally surrounding me and my whole world. It’s time to move on. It’s been time. Mitch was always the one moving me forward into what was right for me. He and my angels are helping me when my heart and physical being wanted to resist it. Things can be replaced and my memories are safe in my heart. So goodbye my sweet car that drove me across the country multiple times and lasted me countless road trips. Thank you for the laughs, life lessons and memories. Now that my summer on the road is officially over and everything I own literally fits into one bag; with not so much as a car keeping me on North America what does Maranda want to do with this new found freedom?!

 
This is a beautiful blessing really. I could have been in the middle of no where, stranded, instead of in a huge city with public transit and a friend to stay with who luckily has the same shoe size! If my car had just died I would just be out the money for it. Instead, this situation releases me from the material attachments of my car and belongings, which were really just an illusion anyway, and creates a unique financial abundance that I’m now free to choose how to dispense. Another car? A plane ticket to some far off corner of the world I have yet to explore? A deposit on an apartment somewhere? A DOG?! Who knows?! This freedom is a gift that I’m grateful for and I’m not going to waste it. What would you do?!