If you’ve known me since I bought a wrangler, you know that I love her. She is a 2014 white two-door with a blacked-out hard top and scarlet leather interior. I named her Scarlet Witch, Switch for short. She is, technologically speaking, the least advanced vehicle I’ve had since college. But she’s quick and zippy and fun to drive. I swear I can fly when the doors are off. I love the Jeep Wave. The bumps in the road. The touchy brakes. She is everything I didn’t know I wanted in a vehicle.

But she has two doors. Putting a car seat in the back would not be ideal. The trunk is far too small for our travel accoutrements, even daily. The road feedback doesn’t pair with toting around a new babe.

And so, she’s destined to be sold. Tomorrow.

A shiny new vehicle will replace her. One more suited for a family of three.

I am having a hard time with it, not just because I love my Jeep.

We build identities – what we do, what we own, how we look, what we value, what our days look like. These identities become who we are.

I don’t think anything fractures these identities more than having a child. Especially for mom. Her body is the first thing that she has to unselfishly and without choice, surrender.

Other things – wardrobe, some hobbies, schedules, taste in food, vehicles, rooms of the house – are sure to follow.

I could keep my Jeep. But she would not serve us. She is the first bit of myself that I have to choose to give up. The first surrender of many.

But what if the identity I’ve crafted – what I do, what I own, how I look, what I value, what my days look like – is not actually my identity, but rather something I hide behind?

If absolutely everything changes and I have nothing to hide behind, I will still be who I am, at my core.

That will be enough.

So I’ll say goodbye to my impractical vehicle. I’ll watch her drive away with tears in my eyes. I’ll learn the intricacies of driving a new car.

Everything else will also change, sooner than later.

“I am both happy and sad at the same time, and I’m still trying to figure out how that could be.” -Steven Chbosky, The Perks of Being A Wallflower