Consequences vs Sacrifices

This beauty right here was my old, salvaged 1995 Honda Civic, AKA “The Blue Mamba.” Since we have no need for a car while we travel, I begrudgingly had to sell her before we left. But that’s the end of the story, let’s go back to the beginning. 

Despite her age, appearance and salvaged title, this was the most significant car I’ve ever owned. 

Let’s start about a decade ago. In 2007, life was looking pretty good. My wife and I had good jobs, we had just bought a home in Orange County, California and we recently had our first child. We were making a smooth transition into full-blown Adulthood. 

In the next 24 months we would experience the most difficult time of our lives. Due to a series of bad financial decisions, immaturity and unfortunate housing market conditions, we entered a very stressful and trying time. In short, I had to sell my first car, our other car was repossessed, we had to short-sell our home and eventually became delinquent on any and all forms of credit we had. 

And it got worse! We had to move into a small “studio apartment.” It was really more of a shack that the landlord converted to make it habitable. After a few months there, I experienced my lowest point as a man, father and supposed leader of my family – we got evicted from this $600/month shack. 

My wife, God bless her. As we were going through our struggles, my wife, through her hustle, was able to borrow some money from a friend and buy a salvaged old Civic from some guy who sold cars out of his backyard. Really. I remember we had to make something like $125 bi-weekly payments and it still took us a number of months to pay of the total $2600 cost. 

In all her glory.

We drove this bad boy as our only car for a couple of years. I remember the time the ignition broke. We were so broke that I couldn’t afford to have it fixed. Fortunately, the Mamba had a manual transmission and so I learned how to push-start it. I literally had to push the car to get up to about 5 miles per hour and then jump into the drivers seat to turn the ignition key! I DID THIS FOR OVER 6 MONTHS. The worst part was having people staring at me like, “look at this fool” as I worked up a sweat pushing the car. I always imagined my neighbors every morning talking to each other like:

I recall getting so pissed off at this car…at myself. Literarily in tears asking God how my life became such a mess. I blamed this car! Not really blamed it but looked at it as symbolic of my failure as a provider. I thought to myself, “I can’t wait to get rid of this junk, then I’ll know we’re back on the right track.”

Fast forward a few years, both my wife and I are progressing in our careers. We have painstakingly rebuilt our financial lives. We begin to slowly trust each other again. We make better financial decisions, we start saving. Ultimately, we end up making the most money we ever had and our finances start looking healthier. We’ve removed the “boot” from our necks and the future, once again, looks pretty bright (white picket fence, here we come!).

And still, just like years ago, every morning I jumped into the Blue Mamba. This time however, if the ignition breaks, I pay to get it fixed. This time, I look at the Mamba with pride and determination. This time she’s no longer symbolic of the consequences of poor decisions. This time, although I could have afforded a nicer car, I choose to drive her. 

Eventually the Blue Mamba became symbolic of the sacrifices we were making, symbolic of wise decisions. For over two years and in spite of the many, many, many times I wanted to buy a new car, I would remind myself – it is a sacrifice. Sacrifice for what? 

Indefinite travel with my wife and kids.