It was cold when I first laid eyes on you - the air bit with crystallized fire and my breath made feeble attempts at melting the frost on that giant window.
You were one among many . . . one in a large crowd, and I remember thinking, I remember wondering aloud, "how will I make this decision correctly?" I couldn't just return you if I changed my mind about the color of your skin . . .
It was cold that day; that day I chose you, one among many, and knew that I was going to be stuck with you - for better or for worse - isn't that what they say?
So you were mine, now. I was happy to show you off and share you with my friends and you were always perfectly willing to allow me to listen to music that fed my soul and eased the tension. There were even a few times you allowed me to bring someone else along . . .
You were brand new in 2007 and oh, man, did I think I had my life all figured out when you became mine; That curly haired boy with the blue eyes with amber flecks in them - I thought for sure he'd always be around. I thought for sure that when the time came and you were fully and completely mine, with nothing else owed to anyone, that there might be a ring on my left finger - that your external appearance would still be so shiny and new.
Little did I know, that as I was putting mileage on you, mileage began to be added on to me - I'm a little ashamed to admit it, really, that I didn't consider how all those miles, all those trips that seemed so worth it, would eventually devalue both our worth and our hearts.
I wish I could say that I treated your interior better than how I treated my own, but that would be a fallacy. I warped myself with caffeine and greasy, drive-thru food, and you became the wasteland and canvas with which the remnants fell to. There are still parts of you sticky with the syrup and time of my well-honed addiction.
To give voice to your exterior brings me a shudder of sadness - I had hoped to keep you as pristine and well groomed as when I found you, for as long as I could. But I suppose it is reasonable to say that what I allowed the world and the people in it to do to my canvas, you also became subjected to.
Like the scars that etch and snake on my skin, you have scars of your own - they're starting to change colors now - growing darker with time and each bought of moisture that is released from Heaven. Those scars are undoable, irreversible, non-negotiable - because of the heady costs that come with them, because of what it might mean - to make us blemish free.
Back when I first found you, picked you out in that crowd - I could have never have known just where we would go together, to whom we would visit with each other, or what the reasons would be for those visitations, for those other people. I realize, now, looking back, that while I was allowing mileage to be put on you, it was with every intention of forcing mileage onto myself.
In two days time you will fully be mine - your balding tires, dented door, and radio that always cuts off my favorite worship song right at the good part. It seems we have a history, you and I.
You hold some particularly scandalous secrets of mine - secrets that make me nervous about the world knowing . . . But you will be mine. We almost match, you know -
Your balding tires for those gray hairs I've discovered recently.
Your scarred surface for the scars I really do try to keep just under the surface.
Y0ur mileage - ever increasing - for my mileage, that has ceased, thankfully.
And that radio of yours, always bonking out just when I want to lift my voice to shout praise.
But it's okay, I'll replace your tires and color my hair.
And don't worry about those rusted dents on your side - the painful memories from
our punctured wounds have given us strength - even if the world refuses to see it.
About that mileage - keep taking me where I want to go and I'll start fighting to
remember who I was before all those men told me who I needed to be.
Also, whether you turn off in the middle of a melody or not, I'll still keep singing -
voice flung high in quivering praise.
It was cold that first day I saw you . . . and the air is starting to get a bite to it now, as I get ready to pay you off. Who I was then is so far from where I am now . . . You've grown with me and aged with me and been bruised with me . . .
But like the four wheels that get me where I want to be, this heart of mine keeps restlessly seeking, too.
You may not be new or glossy with shine anymore, but what do these busted and weakened bones know about any of that?
This world may not choose us first or see us for who we really are, but the road will always be before us and the horizon within reach.
I'm just a girl, wishing to set the world on fire, one mile marker at a time.
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