at the beginning of may, my car was totaled in an accident where I was not at fault. I was driving straight and a tesla made a left turn into me and smashed the front left corner of my car. at the time of the accident I was more pissed than anything else, given that I had been in my first accident not two years ago, and now I had to again go through the song and dance of insurance and rental car and repairs. thankfully unlike my first accident I wasn't (really) injured, and so aside from going to the doctor to get some bruising and muscle soreness checked out I didn't have to worry about that. touma was still a pretty young car (a little over 5 years old), and I assumed at the time that he would be repaired no problem.
until later that week I got the call from the collision center that my car was totaled.
I had a lot of emotions at the time. anger at the driver that carelessly totaled my car (and it being a combo of an out of state driver + a Tesla Of All Things). disbelief that touma was finished. fear at how I would get a new car. overwhelmingly upset and paralyzed with decisions to make. I still was dealing with calls and paperwork with insurance, compounded by the fact that there was a third car involved in the accident (that being a car that was scraped by touma being shoved into them) so that was another insurance company I had to talk to and give my story and file paperwork with. being in an accident is stressful not just because of the initial incident but also the weeks following where you have to juggle phone calls every day. I spent that following weekend just vegetating in bed because I didn't have the energy to do shit.
the story does have a happy ending for what its worth. I was able to get a new car fairly painlessly, and the settlement money paid for most of it, so while I still have a car payment again, it is much less than if I had to start from scratch entirely. I am still tying up a few loose ends with regards to paperwork, for the most part things are Back To Normal. throwing this in here now because I don't want this whole entry to be doom and gloom.
after I got the news that touma was totaled, I set aside time to go to the collision center and take everything personal out of him and also very carefully peel off all of his bumper stickers. I wasn't able to save all of the stickers but I saved most of them, intending on transferring them to my new car. it was kind of a meditative, cathartic experience, and I wanted to sit in touma for a minute and listen to one last song on the radio, but the mechanics at the collision center had disconnected his electric system. tragically the last thing that played through touma's speakers was a literary analysis of the jeff the killer creepypasta. yes you can laugh at that.
touma’s life
I bought touma in the fall of 2019. I had recently gotten my driver's license, having put it off during college because I didn't need a car to get around my college campus. I also only had a part time job in my senior year of college, so its not like I had the income to pay for a car. all that said, touma for a while was the first space I had that was 110% mine. sure, I had apartments in the past, but they weren't places I “owned”. transient spaces to house me for a year and then discarded. and my rooms at my dad's and my mom's houses didn't feel entirely my own places, since I wasn't paying for them. my mom had to cosign on the loan for touma, since i was unemployed and only got a part time job after buying my car, but it was me making the payments for him. I was able to customize him to my liking, gradually accumulating stickers and dashboard decorations. I could listen to my music out loud inside my car, go to him whenever I needed a space where I knew I wouldn’t be bothered. there were one or two video calls I had with my therapist sitting inside touma-kun parked in the driveway of my dad's house because I didn't think I would get privacy otherwise. there were many crying sessions I had in touma-kun because I was frustrated at my job or family or life in general, and I needed a private place to cry.
there was also the freedom that came with having. a car that I hadn't experienced before. granted, that wasn't exclusive to touma-kun, but since he was my First Car it was new and exciting. if I wanted to drive out to get taco bell at 3pm on a monday afternoon I could without having to rely on public transportation or beg one of my family members to drive me. I could stay out late, drive to far away events, and explore new places I saw on social media instead of just bookmarking them for later.
with touma, I was able to help my sibling move out of their college apartment when covid closed down campus. I made the long trip down to north carolina and back a few times. I went to katsucon just before covid shut everything down, and back again when conventions were running again. I’ve ferried my dad and mom and siblings and friends everywhere. its hard to express the attachment I had to touma-kun. I mean obviously, I named my car which makes me more attached to it. but I think touma-kun was special for being my first car. I expected to drive him until he was falling apart, and it turns out that happened a lot earlier than I expected.
yukako
my new car is named yukako-chan, after a jojo’s bizarre adventure character. truthfully I wanted to name my new car jotaro but… considering what he goes through it felt like a bad omen. there are still some growing pains with yukako. while she is the same make and model as touma, she is 6 years apart from touma year wise. buttons aren't in quite the same space so I have to relearn muscle memory. yukako is a push button start instead of starting with a key, something I Do Not Like since i distrust electrical systems replacing mechanical ones, but it is a concession I had to make buying a new car in 2025. another concession is that much of the tactile buttons and knobs I had on touma have been replaced with a screen. I do miss my buttons and knobs that I could reach for without looking, but now I will have to settle for being fully stopped before adjusting many of the settings I could do by touch alone. driving yukako feels much more comfortable to me than my rental car I had for a few weeks, so there's that. and I'm sure that I will get used to yukako’s various quirks as I did touma’s. it will just take time. and I am sure also with time my pain from touma-kun’s untimely totaling will fade too. I can only hope now that he’s driving fast and free in the big highway in the sky…