I have a gorilla.
It’s old, for a gorilla.
I keep it on life support with the occasional – and now, more frequent – mechanical surgeries done by experienced mechanics.
You can see by the photos at the bottom of this post it’s not an actual gorilla, at least not in the sense of the word one would normally use when referring to large hulking masses of teeth, sinew, and overall grumpiness. Or is that an ex-wife? Hard to say. Well, that’s easy to say but hard to walk back if I say it, so I’ll not say it.
Whooooops too late.
In any event, I have a gorilla.
It’s actually a 1997 Ford F150.
Maroon.
It has an add-on camper top I had installed many many moons ago. That camper top made it more enjoyable when I was sleeping in the truck bed in 26 degree (farenheight) temps one cold and dry couple of nights in a West Texas desert, with the nearest light from a nearby house maybe 5 or 6 miles away.
It’s got a little over 463 thousand miles on it now. That’s a lot of miles.
It had over 212 thousand miles on it when we first met back in 2010 or so.
Two thousand dollars, cash. Purchased from a young, angry, brash teen with strong opinions who became a young, angry, brash Marine not too long after the purchase. I suspect he’s still a young, angry, brash man all these years now who I still respect but haven’t kept up with.
The truck and I’ve been together for 16 years now.
It had a life before us – 13 years of it – but it’s not telling me anything about that life. I’ll let it keep those secrets.
The amount of money I’ve spent on this truck has equaled the cost of a different vehicle altogether.
New radiator (first service call), new transmission, new motor (at 254,548 miles), new passenger side mirror to replace the one that was knocked off when the previous owner sideswiped a tree, new passenger door banged up by the same unlucky tree, new radio, wheels, tires, headlight assemblies, windshield, etc, etc, etc.
Is it even the same truck any more? I dimly recall some philosopher asking that about someone else’s ship.
“So”, a logical person may ask, “why keep it going?”
Why indeed.
It’s just an old truck past its prime.
It has computerized components, but doesn’t have the nice bells and whistles of a newer vehicle.
Then why?
When asked, I half-joke about getting it to half a million miles. The manufacturer won’t do anything or send me anything to help celebrate the achievement. “It’s just a personal goal”, I say. “Not too long now, just a little under 37 thousand miles left!”
But it’s more than that.
It’s a thing I can fix.
Well, not me personally, as the skills needed to keep this running go far beyond my talent and interests.
But it is in my care, and when it’s sad, I can help it.
It’s a thing I can fix.
Back in 2008, things weren’t fixed.
Back in 2009, things were even more not fixed.
Back in 2010, things were so not fixed to the point where I wondered if anything could be fixed.
Things were broken. Big things. Things that are still broken. Mending in spots, but at odd angles, like a badly-set broken limb.
Actually things started breaking a while before then. But my Sisyphusian task of keeping things in a workable state finally crashed in September 2008. It’s probably noted in this blog even.
Speaking of crashing, I recall there was a global financial crash happening at the time. But to me that was a dim and fuzzy thing that contributed to the intense storm that threatened to push me and my family over the edge.
Funny how global disasters are barely noticeable under the right conditions.
In 2009 I was starting over. But not in the romanticised way, the way we might see in a play, tv show, or movie. New perspectives, new home, new hopes. Not that.
More like in the way we must start over after a flood has swept though our home and belongings. Looking for bits of irreplaceable items that might be drained, wiped off, salvaged. Looking for the reason why things turned out the way they did. Looking for direction to place my rage, my sorrow, my white noise of thought.
I describe this like I was looking for actual physical items to recover. The loss of belongings meant nothing in reality.
My loss was far deeper than that.
AI has this to say about a random item of interest:
On stress scales like Holmes and Rahe, the death of a spouse ranks at the very top, divorce is close behind, and marital separation and the death of a close family member follow. For men in particular, divorce is associated with elevated rates of depression, substance use, and suicide, partly because men often lose their main source of social connection and emotional support along with the marriage. If children are involved, losing daily contact with them adds a distinct kind of grief.
So no vehicle also.
No way to get to my new job.
The bus worked, but the mile-long walk to the bus stop from my parents’ home (where I was temporarily recovering) in the hot Texas summer meant I was arriving at my white-collar job site sweaty and bedraggled. Not the continued impression I’d want to leave on my new co-workers.
Also there was the 160 mile, one way trip needed to visit the kids in a nearby city in their new home every two weeks.
And the grocery store trips.
And the lawyer visits.
And
And
And
My son’s friend’s dad had an old truck he was ok with parting with, for a few bucks.
I bought it.
It had seen better days. The passenger’s side mirror was missing, the passenger’s door was slightly caved in, the rear-facing cab light wouldn’t turn off, the tires were balding.
But I could fix that. Eventually.
I fixed the things that a cop would stop me for, and saved up cash for the future.
I did the things that needed doing, with help from that truck.
Then the radiator blew.
Hm. Do I fix it? Dump it, and get a newer, better ride?
Think.
Other, non-truck-related things were still broken. Maybe never to be fixed. Or fixed, but forever wounded.
I will fix the truck.
I’ve been fixing the truck all these years.
I will continue to fix the truck, until all things are fixed.
We may be together for a while yet.
