My First Car Was Destroyed In a Flood

My first car was a brand new 2010 Subaru Forester X Premium. I loved everything about it: the cloth seats, the huge sunroof, the bright headlights, the killer sound system (after I added a small preamp unit, of course), the shiny black paint, the way it revved when I pressed the gas pedal just beyond that special point. It was a beaut, and it was my beaut.

A lot of feelings were tied up in that car. I’d purchased it with money I received in an insurance payout after my father passed away at the age of 54. I was 25. My girlfriend at the time, Susie, had taught me to drive on her mother’s Audi and later helped me solidify my skills on my new car after I got my license at the late age of 26. All of a sudden I was able to drive us places for the first time, whereas before she did all the driving.

Without going into specifics, my relationship with Susie ended like so many good relationships do. But my car represented the bond we had, the cooperative approach we took to life. It got me from Point A to Point B, in the same way it took our relationship from Point A to Point B. It’s just that there was not a Point C, and that turned out to be true for the Forester also.

Hurricane Irene, which hit New Jersey in August of 2012, is often overlooked because Hurricane Sandy arrived in October of the following year and was objectively much larger. But where I lived at the time, in Bloomfield, Irene hit us much, much worse. Imagine someone turning your basement into a swimming pool without your permission. Yeah.

There was a park on our street, and in the middle of the park was a pond. For some reason, I was a fool and parked my car on the street adjacent to the park, not far enough away from the pond. I somehow believed the Forester would be okay, or that the water would not be too high when the pond inevitably overflowed. How bad could it be?

Boy, was I wrong.

The next day, amid the glazed-over pavement, fallen tree branches, and other detritus, I went to my car and opened the door. A little stream of water trickled out.

It was just right.

I’m still driving that “new” Forester today, in November of 2017. I recently had the head gasket, timing belt, tires, and brakes replaced. About 3-grand worth of work, and she drives like a dream. Next, when I can afford it, is a paint and body job to get rid of all the scratches and dings. I can make her new again.

I know that what happened to me is not all that bad. I wasn’t injured and I had insurance. But experiences like this are still significant because they affect how you see things. I’ll drive that car as long as I can, and get all the time out of it that I can, and put all the miles on it that I can, to get the most out of it while I have it. And that’s how we should be with pretty much everything: spending as much time as we can enjoying and doing what matters with people we love, because you never know when a phase in your life will reveal itself to be just that: a phase, with a beginning, a middle, and all too suddenly, an end.

Every once in awhile, though, I’ll be zooming down the highway at night, listening to Pink Floyd or DJ Shadow, blasting the air conditioning and sitting tall in the seat, and — just for a moment — I’ll forget that it’s not my original Forester, the one on which I learned to drive, to love, and to lose, and in that moment I know that I’ll never forget that car, or that time in my life, before the flood.