Sometimes I miss you so much it hurts. Not that you care anymore, but when I think about you now, I want you to know that I’m always haunted by the wise words of Willie Nelson:
Maybe I didn’t love you, quite as often as I could have,
Maybe I didn’t treat you, quite as good as I should have,
If I made you feel second best, girl, I’m sorry I was blind,
You were always on my mind, you were always on my mind.
I’ll never forget the first time I saw you. You were so lovely and unassuming, so unlike all the others in your complete lack of complication and fanciness. Best of all, I knew I could have you; you weren’t just a silly pipe dream like some of the others.
You and your fantastic 1997 Honda Civic-ness. I drove you off the lot on a warm, spring day in Dunwoody, Georgia—remember that day?—and christened you “Aggie” as a nod to the periodic table’s abbreviation for your beautiful silver hue. I bet you never knew that. I never even told you how you got your name.
I bet you also never knew how important you were in our lives back then. Your dad and I had been sharing one car—your brother, Green, an Accord—to cover the horrific urban sprawl of Atlanta. Our entire existence was one big schedule, planned down to the last minute so that each of us could get maximum use out of you, but not make the other late for any appointments or outings. We fought all the time over you because the truth is (Oh God, Green, I hope you’re not reading this), we preferred you. You had a CD player and Green didn’t. So we’d find silly reasons why the other shouldn’t drive you. “You’re driving her too hard—you’ll burn her clutch!” Or “I’m taking a road trip and I need a CD player!” I know now that all that arguing couldn’t have been good for you, and that our hard driving affected your emotional state, and of course, your resale value.
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