This week is the “anniversary” of the loss of my car. San Diego was hit with a “storm of the century”—something that seems to happen every few years instead of every 100—on January 22, 2024. Two days later, I discovered my car had been flooded in the semi-underground garage which I parked in at my apartment complex. You can read all about it by clicking here and here … I’m not going to bore you with the gory details yet again, but I am going to tell you what it’s like not owning a car in Southern California, at least for me, over the past year.
I hate the word anniversary in reference to something sad or bad. It just doesn’t fit. There was nothing remotely happy about losing my car a year ago, but there was a lesson learned, I suppose, which is positive. As I wrote in the above-linked posts, I’d been thinking of quitting driving for a while. I hated driving. The roads are so crowded, the drivers are so obnoxious, everyone is in such a f*cking hurry all the time. My driving had gotten to the point of basically just Target and bookstore runs a couple of times a week, if that. The farthest I drove at any one time was either La Jolla or La Mesa, both about 15-20 miles away from where I live. I also had started noticing some diminishing in my driving skills. In September 2023, I pulled into a parking lot too tightly and hit a curb, blowing out a tire. Soon after that I cut someone off while exiting I-8. All little things, but things that never happened before. That and the almost weekly viewings of high-speed car chases, particularly in the Los Angeles area, plus the high cost of maintaining a car in this area—San Diego usually has just about the highest-priced gas in the country, not to mention soaring insurance costs—made me realize it was time to reconsider my driving future.
My car was 17.5 years old when it “went away,” and I knew that no matter what, it would be my last car. On average, figuring in gas once a month, insurance (which I usually paid off in advance for the entire year), parking at my residence, and yearly maintenance, I was spending over $225.00 a month for my car, not a lot to maintain a vehicle in Southern California, but certainly not cheap. In the past year, minus a car, I spent $730 in transportation costs. This included ferry rides from Coronado to downtown San Diego, and Lyft rides to various places around town. $730 versus about $2,700/year is certainly better; even a math-adverse genius like me can figure that one out, with the help of fingers, toes, and a calculator. It’s a bit tough to get around at times, and I do often rely on the kindness of friends, who graciously take me to doctor appointments, shopping, and lunches, dinners, and happy hours.
The one thing that the loss of my car has done for me is make me more of a homebody. It’s really made me appreciate my home and caused me to make efforts—mainly little things—to improve it. I still walk every day, and I’m out and about most days, trying to walk either five miles or meet my next five-mile threshold (today, as I write this, I need about 4.3 miles to hit 80 on the 16th of the month; in 2024 I walked about 1,940 miles). I improved my balcony furniture last spring, so that area now acts as an additional room for me on my apartment, and I love reading out there. I walk up to the village here in Coronado about 2-3 times each week, doing some light grocery shopping or grabbing lunch while getting my steps in.
Do I miss my car? Well, over the past few weeks, I’ve seen it—or one very similar to it—while on my walks. For all I know it IS my car. I know it was taken away by my insurance company (after a very nice payout for a 17.5 year-old car, thank you very much), and probably refurbished and sold at auction. I’ll have to look more closely at the body if I see it again, to see if I can discern any familiar scratches or nicks. When I do see a car that looks like mine, it does make me a little sad and wistful. I don’t miss driving, but I do miss the idea of freedom owning a car gave to me, especially living in such a car-dependent area. Things that used to take me a hour or two now take double that. I have to be more strategic in planning shopping trips and doctor visits and combining the two when it’s possible. I have pretty much everything I need here on my little island and what I don’t have, I can very easily have delivered. But I still sometimes look at that beautiful, vaulting Coronado Bridge and think, “I used to drive across that in my car,” and get a little pang or two. I try to go over to the “mainland” about twice a month.
By the time you’re reading this, I haven’t driven a car in one whole year. I have no desire to ever own another car or even drive one again. I’ve gotten used to not having one. In some ways, I feel better about not owning one, both financially and ecologically. I feel I’m maybe doing a little something for the environment. I love walking, I love being at home, and I love the extra money, but it certainly has been an adjustment over the past year. But hey … I survived and maybe even thrived a little bit without a car. Let’s see how the next year goes, but I couldn’t stop and think about all this happening almost exactly one year ago … and, I guess, writing about it.
@innocent-bystander.com 
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