In mid-October 2012, I was hired for the best job I have ever worked. It was with a company which is adjusting its standards and practices to be sustainable, with a zero-landfill-manufacturing goal. I was well paid, had full benefits, and was working with people who cared about many of the same things I do. I had my eye on executive track through the marketing department, planning to build at least a piece of my career there.
As with so many others, however, I was laid off in late April 2013, and things have been a little tight since then. Actually, scratch that. Things have been financially miserable since then. Having applied for unemployment which I have yet to receive, I had to do something about my bills. The only jobs I've found thus far would pay me less than what I am collecting through unemployment, yet unemployment itself cannot sustain me entirely.
That in mind, I came to a difficult realization yesterday: I would have to sell my car...
I listed it on Craigslist for a bit more than market value, only to make the sale four or five hours later for slightly less (right at market). That by no means indicates I made a lot of money. I didn't, and what I brought in is mostly spoken for already. This is because the car I sold, my primary source of transportation, was a 19-year-old Honda with well over three hundred thousand miles on it.
So now, on the one hand, I have my bills covered along with enough for incidentals and to help with transportation. On the other, my car is gone! I'm a little nonplussed about the sale for sentimental reasons also, as that car had been in my life for the better part of twenty years. My father drove it off the lot in 1994, and I was slated to get the car when I graduated high school. Dad changed his mind and kept the car, selling it to me a couple years ago, and I've driven it nearly every day since.
Every time I step out for a cigarette, I automatically glance at Margaret's parking spot (yes, my car's name was Margaret... Any "Regular Show" fans out there? XD ), only to see the rather sizable oil spot she left behind. I miss my Margaret, but perhaps soon I can turn the cash into a new old clunker to drip oil where she once did...
