Long may you run

Growing Up
by Conor Levis

Tonight, I said goodbye to my first car. After 15 years and nearly 200,000 miles on the road, the truck has finally reached the end with the Levis family. It still runs perfectly fine. It's a Toyota after all. The problem is that the bottom is so rusted, it will never pass inspection. Plus we're getting a pretty good deal on trade-in value and like everyone these days...we sure could use the money. So when I got home tonight and saw it parked in the driveway, I decided to sit in the old thing one last time. I didn't realize I would be in there for so long. As I sat there in the truck I had grown up in, I began thinking about all the memories and the people who shared them with me. There were a lot of great moments associated with that truck throughout my adolescent life. All of the fun car rides and crazy places I went. I thought about that time in my life when I was driving the truck. A young teenager with so much ahead of him. Someone who had dreams and high hopes, some that were fulfilled, others not so much. I wondered where the time had gone...and wondered how I grew up so fast. I can't pretend that it's something I haven't been thinking about. It's been on my mind lately, especially with the things going on around me. My best friend turns twenty-two this weekend. Twenty two years old! The guy I went to preschool with and have known my entire life. While I'm happy for him, I'd be lying if I said it wasn't hard watching him get older. It's crazy to think how far we've come. That in a few more years most of us will be on our own and beginning our careers. There are times I can't help but feel I'm not ready yet. That everything is happening way too fast and there is still so much more to experience before making that transition. But I suppose that's just a part of life. Nobody said growing up was going to be easy.

It's times like these when you think back to all the things that made you who you are. The people who came and went. The people with you for the long haul. The things you'll cherish forever...and the things you'll always regret. Anything that ever made an impact on your life. When I wake up tomorrow, the truck that was with me for the most valuable years of my life will be gone. I don't know where it's going and I don't know what will happen to it. But I do know one thing...that there's more to that truck than fuel pumps and crankshafts. There is a part of me in that truck. The places I'd gone, the things I'd done. The person I had been. The person I'm becoming. And for the first time, as I sat alone in my car for the last time, I realized the true value of the old thing...and why it was so hard to let it go.