Blue Bug and the Art of Letting Go

Today, I’m selling my old car. It was the last car with my late husband’s name on it. We called it Blue Bug. I’m crying, of course—because Blue Bug was my home when we were homeless, a home that carried us through a major trauma in our life’s journey.

I’m crying because, despite everything I did to save it, some things just can’t be fixed.

Life feels sad sometimes. I think it’s the letting go. It’s also the remembering—being held in our beloved’s embrace and not realizing then that it’s just a body made up of arms and legs and one big, enlarged heart. It’s letting go after all our efforts fail, when we are forced to look within, and beyond, not without. That’s why life is a journey. Each letting go carries us to a new shore.

I’m signing over my old car at a CarMax dealer, and I’m crying, of course. My signature is just a word—sentimental and meaningless—like when I really think about my inner experience of letting go. It’s ineffable. But still, I try to characterize it with some cursive form, hoping to bring substance to an idea—an idea that may, if done right, catch the light in someone else’s eye and explode into a cathartic moment.

I’m crying because some post-PTSD moment is happening—like entering a softer phase in which I observe happiness beginning to grow. Maybe I’m letting go of letting go. Is it possible to stop letting go? Or is that what life is: a perpetual letting go?

They hand me a small check, and I feel *un gran suspiro*. I’m allowing, embracing, receiving, rebuilding, imagining—envisioning what to do now with this unexpected gift.

I’m crying, of course—because a memory floats with me in the taxi on the way home. I wonder how there’s enough space in the back seat of a car to hold such a big memory, one that fills me with deep love and sadness. As I turn to look the other way, I wonder: will the memory ever fade? Or are memories like this, a kind of cosmic dream, lingering forever?

I’m crying because there is an awareness. It’s the heart that holds memory and it’s called love—and there really is enough to go around, it’s infinite space, if you allow it.

I’m crying, of course.

My heart breaks open, making new space, like a lucid dream. It’s become a kind of maze somehow, reaching far into corners where I can visit when I need to, knowing I can return there at any time and rest beside you when I die.

I’m crying because I’m breathing new life. In and out, I pry myself open, transforming this long, dark night into the sun.

Today, I’m selling Blue Bug while a new car is already tucked away.

And I’m crying, of course.