Fast, Faster, Fasting

Mercedes SLR McLaren Concept

I have a car that looks nothing like the Mercedes concept car pictured here. My 1999 Chevy Prism, which is really a Toyota Corolla with a Chevy sticker on it, has 278,084 miles on the odometer. I would love to get 300,000 miles on the car, but I don't think that's going to happen, oddly because Toyota made it unlikely. The vast majority of the miles on the car were racked up by my 130 mile per day commute to the plant where the car was assembled. If I was still commuting, I could get the 22,000 miles I need to reach my goal in about eight months, plus or minus a couple of weeks. However, since Toyota decided to close the plant, I don't use this car very much. At the rate I'm going now, it will take four years to get to the 300K milestone, and I don't think the car will last that long. The engine might, but so many of the things like seats and seals and plastic parts and heater fans are deteriorating at this point that four years may just be too long a time. I can identify with that. Mentally I am still going strong, but there are lot of my trim items that are going to hell in a hand basket.

I quietly tried a bit of fasting recently. Fasting is a spiritual exercise where we do without our accustomed food so that in feeling physical hunger we might recognize a spiritual hunger for holiness. Funny thing about fasting (and I have found this to be a common experience) is that when you are fasting, there are things you want to eat that you normally don't even think about. You begin to fast, and suddenly have a horrible craving for bon-bons...lots of bon-bons.

Retirement seems to have a similar effect. One of the disciplines that Sand and I have to maintain is an adherence to a simple (read cheap) lifestyle. For whatever reason, I have secretly been mourning the fact that now I will never own a Mercedes. The ludicrous part of that is that I have never wanted one. Even if I were to lose my head and spend that much on a car, it would be a Lexus, not a Mercedes. But I find myself fascinated with Mercedes commercials on TV, and I catch myself gazing wistfully at the Mercedes next to me at the stop light.

At some level of my psyche, I am still invested in the "things equal success" mentality, just as  I have known for a while now that I am still reluctant to part with "I can be young forever" mentality.

It is an interesting time of life. I've got some time on my hands, maybe Monday I'll find a Mercedes dealership and watch bon-bons melt on the hood of a Le Mans Red metallic SLS Roadster. I may learn something about myself, and I'll get a few miles closer to my goal of 300,000 miles.