There’s an old song, with a lyric that goes something like, “I’ve grown accustomed to her face.” A quick Google search tells me that it’s from the musical My Fair Lady.

Cars don’t have faces, but, one gets accustomed to a vehicle after seven and a half years of ownership. It’s not a relationship, exactly. But there was consistency, dependability, a sense of security perhaps. I use my car every day. I don’t even always talk that frequently to my friends.

But these things don’t last forever, and at eleven years old (I bought her used in 2018), my 2015 Subaru Forester was ready to move on to the next phase in her life. In other words, she needs thousands of dollars worth of work and at her age it can’t be justified. This might help put it into perspective: among many other more serious things, I’d need to install an entirely new audio unit, because her original one is so old they don’t even do software updates for it anymore, and that is needed to fix the really spotty Bluetooth connection.

I’d only paid it off six months ago, and the mileage for her age isn’t bad at all. I figured I’d run this car into the ground; I just hadn’t realized I was already on the ground. It’s hard to tell when you’re very short, you know. (Teehee.)

My seven-year-old daughter has been very sad about having to say goodbye to Shelby. I suppose naming inanimate objects doesn’t help keep a practical perspective on things, but, she’s become a little attached. I’ve been surprised to feel similar heartache at the situation. I bought Shelby when I was five or six months pregnant and panicking about needing a safer car for my incoming precious cargo. My tiny sedan was not big enough and not safe enough. In my hormone-addled mind, it was either a Subaru or a tank, and ya know, the army’s finance rates just weren’t as reasonable. So, Shelby it was. And she’s been a great, reliable car for my daughter’s whole life. But, she’s been undeniably expensive over the years. I simply can’t afford to keep repairing a car that is only going to break more with time, not less.

Once I got over the panic of having to make drastic adult decisions so unexpectedly, we went to the sales department instead of the service department, and quite some time later, the solution to my car problems turned out to be somewhat unexpected just like the initial debacle in itself. For lots of complicated financial reasons, as well as the fact that apparently I drove far fewer miles per year than I thought I did, I will very soon be trading Shelby in for pretty good value and then leasing a new car, downsizing a bit from the Forester to the Crosstrek.

I think it’s meaningful that all this fell into place over Mother’s Day weekend. The one silver lining I could think of when we first met with the salesman on Friday (before we finalized things today), was how much my mother would hate that I was going to lease a car.

She would hate it. I get a sense of, oh I don’t know, some cross between grim satisfaction and snarky glee, from the fact that she would hate that I’ve made this decision when she’s warned me my whole life never to lease a car. I’ll admit her reasons for that weren’t entirely out of line, but, the leasing process is different now than it once was, and this is what in the end truly makes sense for me (and I’m the one who’s footing the bill after all). I woke up this morning feeling really nervous about finalizing the deal today, because I still have my mother’s voice inside my head telling me I’m both doing the absolute wrong thing and overreacting about it all. Super helpful. (In case you’re wondering, I had similar underlying anxiety about committing to buying Shelby back in the day too; that was also a great big grownup decision I made without my mother, and seven years ago I was far less practiced at it.)

I’ve recently come to the realization that much of the decision-making I engage in is greatly influenced by fear of my mother. There’s a lot to unpack with that and it’s too premature for me to dive into here and now. But I will say that when I’d figured this out during therapy earlier in the week, it had very different context. But if I’m to do what my therapist has been encouraging me to do, which is to live my life ruled less by fear and more by joy, less by struggle and more by ease, I need to work on turning off my mother’s voice inside my head.

Mother’s Day is always very difficult for me. But the possibility of unlearning the instinct of letting her rule my life is full of promise. I thought I’d taken that permission away about eight years ago (almost as long as I’ve had Shelby!), when I went no-contact with her. But there are parts of me that didn’t get the memo. I am now actively working on rooting those bits out and setting them in the right direction. I am working on turning her voice off, like a quick twist of a radio knob.

Did I anticipate having to turn her off with a life change as big as leasing a new car? Nope! That was not on my 2026 Bingo card, as the cool people like to say these days. For the record, I’m not one of the cool people; I named my Forester Shelby and grew accustomed to her face.