We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over ~ Aneurin Bevan

I love my Dodge Caravan. It’s the second one I’ve owned, each for 10 years, the first purchased with my now ex-husband in 1989. We (the car and I) were very proud to recently celebrate our 176,000^th mile together, but leaks of oil and other auto liquids are causing a leak of dollars that screams inevitable divorce, or maybe death. Need-A New-Car-Every-Three-Years is more like divorce.

This process of car shopping is decision making by torture. I can easily choose what I want for breakfast though there is that voice that tells me I will never lose weight eating "that," but making a decision about a car feels life threatening.

The problem is that I slept through Know Your Own Mind 101, but was alert for Second Guessing the Future 320 (aka You’d Better Get It Right) and its prerequisite Everyone Knows Better Than You 110. No one told me 320 and 110 were a direct path to the loony bin or I might have chosen different courses.

I want so badly to blame my mother for this inability, but she has carefully catalogued every bad decision I have ever made and any confrontation would leave me wounded and bleeding on the battlefield. She just never trusted my decision-making capacity, and I learned not to trust it myself. It wasn’t as if she never asked my opinion, it was just that I learned there was a right and wrong answer, and should I get the answer wrong, there were consequences of the embarrassing/feeling incompetent kind. If only she had trusted my choice in clothing, or at least let me make my own mistakes, things might be different today. I learned that I did not know what looked best on me or what was most appropriate for an occasion, and today I still hate to shop for clothes (or anything else). It’s the having to make a choice thing. When I’m around my mother even today, the wrong choice of a video, vegetable, or pan to cook in brings me back to feeling like, and maybe even behaving like, I’m eight.

Now that I am facing this car purchase decision alone it feels titanic in scope, and I keep wishfully and unrealistically hoping that my van will heal itself and last another 176,000 miles. My mind is battered by questions I do not feel I can answer by myself: Should I get new or used?  Should I get a hybrid or regular?  Should I get a sedan or a small SUV?

I am certain of one thing. I want a light-colored vehicle. Why? Because as a kid, my father educated us as to the safety factors inherent in driving a light-colored vehicle; they are easier for other drivers to see, therefore less likely to get into accidents. Provable logic, especially of the safety variety is easy to kowtow to; therefore, even though the purple Elantra called my name, I tested the white one because the ancient voice in my head was saying, “Purple is not very easy to see.” But that voice is deep from my past and was not coming from the ancient head in the wheelchair beside me. I am pretty sure that if I really wanted the purple one, real-time-dad would be okay with that. Long-time-ago dad actually told me, as I was giving excuses for not being able to do something, that I didn’t need to give reasons, just answers, and that I really ought to stop behaving like a doormat; however, every time I decide it is time to heed that advice a myriad of voices show up in my head:  "What if you make a bad or wrong decision, what if there is a better choice, what if everything goes wrong, what if someone doesn’t like this decision?, really, is because you like it a good enough reason, how will you defend yourself?’ I know this sounds and is neurotic, and I am embarrassed that at age 56 I don’t trust myself and care so much about what others think that I cannot decision make for myself.

So how will I make this decision? When the car dies (and though I do believe in miracles, I’d rather not chance getting stuck on the grapevine), I’ll have to. Maybe I’ll get a psychic reading or toss a coin. Maybe I should ask for an answer from my dreams and hope I remember them. Or maybe, with the help of Consumer Reports and Road and Track, I will logic my way into it, but that just doesn’t feel right for me.

So I will do my best to lay those voices to rest assuring them that I do know what’s best for me (even if I don’t yet believe it). And once they are quiet, I know I will get into one car, and as I navigate surface streets going to the freeway, I will sense that it feels right, that I am with an old/new friend, and that this will be the beginning of a beautiful, and long-lasting relationship.

copyright 2009 Nancy Grossman