Violated

I spent the weekend out of town. Well, that was the big thing I did this weekend anyway. I was invited to meet a fairly new friend two hours away for a dinner and support of his friends band in a bar. I accepted under the pretense that I consistantly can NOT fully enjoy my Tivo/dog cuddle/vodka drink/PJ clad weekends because I know there is more to life than sitting on the couch when your able body and overactively fatasy ridden mind have all the possibilities of Southern California that a big wide smile can get into - and I Tivo. So I did two loads of laundry, packed a bag, and headed off to find out it was a three and a half hour drive into the sunset gleaming off the ocean of Santa Barbara (sounds nice, but not for driving I PROMISE) to get to wait for an hour at the only place in his town worthy of stuffing our faces at and leaving three songs into the three hours late set of his band. And he passed out when we got to bed. Fan bloody tastic.
In the morning I slept in, showered, had his mom make me a ham sandwich (yep, I met the parents and everything) before waiting through half an hour of football commercials before announcing if this was all he had to offer I would be leaving now. And as I pulled out of the driveway and onto the highway, it hit me. A heavy burden rested over my straight posture and 10 and 2 positioning, reminding me that there is the severe possibility (well, the feeling was more like "DOOM IMPENDING DOOM") of bad bad bad things to come. Like I would get pulled over and my car would be impounded or I would watch the waves and run off the road and over the cliff side to meet them or that one of these jokers at 90 mph would not merge with the half a second to spare they had been leaving themselves and I would be a first witness to a sprawl of car parts and bleeding people and spend the rest of the weekend repeating my testamony as to who's fault it was to the 14 cops who would be part of the clean up.
Alas, none of that happened. I had a heart attack coming around a corner on a massive downhill grade where my car refused to stick to the speed limit, but Mr. CHP stayed put and it only took me twenty miles to get my heart out of my throat. Since things were going pretty well, I refused to find a fast food joint 20 min from my house to piss in and raced upstairs quietly so as not to wake the dogs the instant I pulled into the driveway. Having Succeeded, I gave the pups a rubdown, got back outside and unloaded the empty water bottles, RockStar can, Carl's Jr. bag, my luggage and purse and coat, AND the 12 pack of soda my aunt gave me about two months ago that I have used as a stand for my muddy tennie shoes behind my seat.

Apparently I didn't make a second glance worth its two seconds. And I guess a year and a half knowing my automatic locks are possessed and simply won't stay locked about 3/4 the time is catching up with me. When I got into my car this morning my book of CDs, visor of CDs, and whatever tampons and nail files and bobby pins I had in my glove compartment had been ripped off. From my own driveway.
I felt raped.
And then I felt my gut S C R E A M I N G at me " I TOLD YOU SO - LISTEN!!!"

Its been a few times now that my car has bore the brunt of my facing down my existential quandries. I cracked the windshield the last time I went to visit the guy who thought take out chinese made up for the hour and a half each way I drove to his place. It was the last time because even THAT was too much to ask that trip. I still wear the crease in the back passanger door from when I thought spending time with the family would be a nice idea - and came out the next morning to a smashed car and no note. The passenger side has a scrape of worn paint on the wheelwell and side mirror from the parallel parking job in front of the apartment complex of the guy who said we were friends but dumped me for the woman I had dinner with that night. And the bumpers are both obviously worn from a myriad of small infractions of judgement that remind me of parties gone bad, roomates gone worse, and quick fixes that ruined the structure. These lessons I am reminded of Every time I wash Missy.
But, this is seriously the first time the inside has been abused in any way. Well, it hasn't been vaccuumed out since I got here and the moves and the dog and the take out have made their marks but that helps reveal the ME factor. I LIVED out of my car. It was my sanctuary of perfect treble to bass ratio, never moved by a guy seat, everything in reach right where I left it, and No One had anything to do with it but me.
And as I slid into my familiar this morning, the visor hit me in the forehead; the whole in the dash left wide open for me to see its emptyness.
And there was a whole new feeling of violation.
Beat up the outside. Fine. Its cosmetic and I'll fix it when I feel like it. Rip a bumper half off, chip the paint - whatever. Its just a little protection stripped away but I am still whole inside. Its still my car and my space when I get behind the wheel and manouver this beast of tin about the world. But to sit there and know someone was there...to look around and wonder if they were in my seat... took my sanctuary away.
Well, I did get the bad feeling about the car for this weekend ahead of time. And it materialized. Usually I see in hindsight that the car was simply a coincidental icing on the Fucked Situation cake I ate at that time. It was just some old CDs.
But what is it about my car getting fucked with when I am going through a Big Deal? And what about this weekend left me cosmetically intact but robbed from the inside?? OK, OK, maybe its not all that directly symbolic. But I did talk to Him on the way back into town and this morning I felt peices of me missing. And I immediately started coping with the grief; covering it up, rationalizing it away, being thankful for this reminder of what is really important; feeling hurt in places I didn't know I had. Just like every time I think of Him. Coincidence?