I totaled my first car 30 days ago.
I got Dewy, my 2008 white Subaru Legacy, when I turned 16. Honestly, I wasn’t thrilled with the selection that my parents had made for me. I had always made fun of people who drive Subarus. But it took about 2.3 seconds for me to decide that it was the best gift I had ever received.
And it took about 2.3 seconds Monday, Nov. 4 at 5:43 p.m. for Dewy to become unrecognizable as it sat crunched up like a ball of paper surrounded by shattered glass and car parts in the middle of the six-lane I-35W.
I got asked out on my first date in that car. It’s driven back and forth from Denver to St. Paul five times with three speeding tickets in the mix. It’s been on more road trips to my roommate’s hometown in Forest City, Iowa than I ever thought possible. It popped a tire on the way home from the Mall of America, leaving my friends and I stranded on the side of a dark highway at 1 a.m. It drove my coworkers to the warehouse we worked at freshman year of college, four people crammed into a three person back seat. It witnessed Rosie and I perform “Careless Whisper” to an exclusive group of listeners. It knew my high school friends and now my college friends. And now, those memories are scattered around a junkyard somewhere in Minnesota.
I’m telling you this because it’s part of my history. So many significant moments of my life happened in that car. Dewy was a tangible way for me to remember my life and relive my favorite moments. In a weird way, it held everything together and transported me from the old to the new. It even smelled like my life, and every time my ten-year-old cousin Nora got in the back seat she’d say, “I love the way this car smells like you.”
Everyone has a story. For some, their lives are made up of their talents. Being the captain of the soccer team, the quarterback of the football team or serving on the Bethel United worship team. For others, it’s made up of defining moments. Getting kicked out of college and then being given a second chance. Moving 5,129 miles away from family to escape a war. And for many, it’s the little moments of a Monday that make up a life. Like Spotify Wrapped or the first bite of a McRib sandwich.
These moments, memories and people shape our worlds and give us reasons to wake up. And this is the reason the Clarion tells stories. The reason I tell stories. In the state of the world that we live in – post-election, run by AI and TikTok shop – stories are more important than ever. But why does it feel that nobody wants to read them?
I’ve driven about 3.5 hours in my red 2013 Ford Escape. It’s nothing like Dewy. I haven’t even named it. But I know that it’s waiting to hold stories and memories. It’s waiting to be a part of my life. It’s waiting to encounter new people, new feelings, new songs, new adventures.
And when I take a step back, I see myself in these two cars. My past, my present and my future. Maybe I’m the one who’s waiting. Maybe you’re waiting. Waiting for the moments that will become a story. The Clarion is telling these stories. Will anybody read it? Maybe, maybe not. But they need to be told to prove that it happened. To prove that we exist. To prove that we lived.
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