Home.

So I’ve bought 7 cars in my 9 years of driving, all being used, 3 of them I still have, and every time, the feeling is the same.

You get in it for the first time, test drive it, maybe the controls are a little foreign to you, the seat doesn’t feel like your previous car, or your parent’s car, and it’s a new thing. It’s still not your own.

But you like it, so you buy it. And even then, after it’s your own, it still doesn’t feel right for a bit. There’s a cigarette in the ash tray, but you don’t smoke. There’s a receipt from McDonald’s on the floor but you haven’t been there in years. There’s a pink steering wheel cover on the car, but pink definitely isn’t your thing.

But over time, you clean it. And you get rid of the things, their older stereo they installed, their seat covers, the overall “used” atmosphere that the previous owners have collected and felt over the years that made it feel like home to them.

And then it starts to feel like home to you.

And you dress it with your own tastes. You give it a name. You give it new wheels. You give it the sound of your music. You give it new destinations.

And now it’s a large part of your day. A large part of your life. A large part of you.

And then you look at the dashboard and see that six digit mileage number. And think of the many memories that this car has been a part of. And the many places it’s been over the past 20 years.

But now it belongs to you, and it’s home to you. Making new memories and driving new places, listening to the soundtrack of your life through a headphone jack, because you didn’t yet get the iPhone 7.

The car no longer feels like when you first stepped into it to test drive it, does it? It’s the same car, but it now gives off a completely different energy. You step into it, and it’s no longer foreign; it’s no longer that same car you found on an online ad. Over time, the bits and pieces of energy of the past fade away that made it feel like “just a car”, and now it feels like home to you.

It’s the greatest feeling when things in life start to feel like home to you; in all aspects of life, strive for that.