What My Classic Car Has Taught Me About Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Inconvenience

If you follow me on Instagram, chances are you’ve seen the car we bought a few months ago. It’s a 2002 Land Rover Range Rover — and for the car connoisseurs who come for me every time I post about it, it’s “technically” not a “classic car” for another year, but calling it classic now is my prerogative! Ease of characters for text overlay people !!!! I digress. :)

We’ve never owned an old car, but have always loved the idea of it. Our family motto is “choose what sparks joy, even when it’s not the practical choice” (I just made that up now, but it’s the general ethos of how we do things). We went from having cars, to selling our cars when we moved to NYC, to buying cars again, to selling one car, to buying this one because it just sounded too fun not to. And we were right. It is FUN.

For us, the car has drastically improved our day to day life. A drive to drop the girls off at school, a trip to the grocery store, a boring errand — all have become little exciting daily activities because the car makes it all feel like a fun excursion. An enhancement for the mundane, which can otherwise wear you out after a while. That feels like a worthwhile use of funds, if you ask me.

Probably the most asked question I get from the aforementioned car connoisseurs is “it’s in the shop more than it’s on the road, huh???” Apparently this particular car has a reputation for being unreliable, something I only know because my husband (and all the internet trolls) told me. But Michael (husband) is wise, so if he thinks it’s a good investment in spite of that, then I’m game. Plus it’s pretty!

But to answer your question, so far we’ve had really good luck with it overall. We knew buying an old car would mean things breaking or slowing down or giving out. This has happened in small ways already, and in one big way which led to us sitting in the middle of Sepulveda waiting for a tow truck, Michael staying in the car while I took the girls into Subway for lemonade and Doritos.

We knew what we signed up for, and honestly the inconveniences of having an old car have been more of a blessing (most of the time) than a bother. For example, when I pump my gas, I have to physically hold down the nozzle button to dispense the gas because for some reason the car won’t let me put it on auto and go sit in the front seat and scroll on my phone.

I was pumping gas the other day, in the moment feeling particularly perturbed that 1. I couldn’t leave it to pump on its own and go sit down and 2. that it was pumping so slowly (another gas-pumping pitfall). But I had a realization in that moment. Why does this need to be faster? More efficient? So I can be done faster and rush off to fill my time with something else that perhaps might be efficient or automated in some way, which frees up time for even more stuff. I’d love to say that any time I save thanks to things being speedy I use to rest, but I usually use it to create more things to do or more stress for myself.

What’s wrong with me pumping my gas taking up my time? Isn’t it okay for this to take time? Is it arguably worthy of taking up time and space in my day? Could the same be said for things like laundry? Dishes? Handwritten things?

Even if it sounds cheesy, this car has been a reminder for me that it’s okay for mundane things to take up time. Not only that, mundane things are WORTHY of taking up time. The fact that it’s a lot less like a computer and a lot more like a hunk of metal that takes us from point A to point B is incredibly invigorating. I don’t have the option to choose from a million playlists (not without our USB adapter that is) — it’s whatever is on FM radio. Maybe optionality, efficiency, and infinity aren’t all they are cracked up to be. Maybe we were made to be limited. Perhaps inconvenience is an invitation.

They say money can’t buy you happiness, which is 100% correct, but I DO think it has the ability to give you tastes of eternal joy through earthly things — even mundane earthly things. Like the fact that beautiful cool old cars exist and we can live our lives inside of them is so much fun, is it not?? And I think God desires for us to experience the joy of life in the day-to-day things — those things that also contain us and hem us in — just like our 2002 Range Rover.

"So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God."

1 Corinthians 10:31