It's About the Journey. Not the Destination.

It's about the journey, not the destination has never rung more true for me than it has in the last couple of days.

As you will know if you've watched any of my content or read my previous blogs, I've been very excited to rebuild a certain little British Roadster. Drawing one more deep breathe... I will cut to the proverbial chase. The longest roadtrip has come to an abrupt end. That’s right. The dream of fixing up my first car, the car that my recently late father and I bought together so many years ago has been extinguished. Here’s how it ended. After having flown out to my hometown of Denver Colorado I got to work cleaning out my mother’s garage and prepping the little red 1977 MGB for transport. This meant emptying the trunk of its 20 years worth of dormant contents (mostly basketballs, car parts and other such items a young gearhead may have stored). The tires were dry rotted to the point of being an imminent danger had they tried to accept air. So I bought new tires and painstakingly swapped them out, dodging rust from tired fender panels, dirt, cobwebs, clusters of miniautre cotton ball shaped spider eggs and old ski poles hanging from the garage wall. I scheduled the tow truck, watched the little British car get loaded up and followed it to its British car repair shop destination.

I was excited to see the little car seeing fresh tarmac for the first time since there was a Bush in the white house even if it wasn’t traveling under its own power. I knew the car was running its first leg of a long journey toward road worthiness again. I’ll briefly allow myself to talk dollars and cents because it will be relevant later in the story.

When I spoke to the shop who would be breathing life back into the old roadster, they asked me what kind of condition I thought the car was in and I told them as accurately as I could, everything I remembered about the car when it was running, where I had purchased it, where it had been stored as well as anything I’d noticed during my recent encounters with it. The shop manager said he’d seen this exact story before and that I should probably expect to spend anywhere from $6k to $8k to get it roadworthy and safe again. This would entail (amongst other things) replacing the fuel tank, fuel lines, brakes, break lines, light engine work, alignment/bushings and even piston ring replacement should it come to that. When I got the car back, I’d still be on the hook for bodywork, roof and interior. Add X dollars for unknowns, carry the “1” and all in I’d set myself a budget of around $15k (before shipping to TX … add another $1.5k) to get this personal automotive icon running well and pretty alright. I decided to look at value for 1977 MGBs just to see what examples in decent, not concours shape as going for. It turned out, they were worth between $12k and $15k. Would I end up slightly under water on this build? Yes. But I figured I was simply paying a 10% to 15% sentimentality tax and I was ok with that. That was more money than I’d planned to part with on a fourth car, but to me, it meant that much.

Here's where the story began to poorly.

Fast forward a couple of days and my wife and I were back home in the Dallas Forth Worth area, plugged into our home offices when I looked at my phone notifications and I saw a missed call from the British car repair shop. The message preview read something like “Hey it’s xxx from xxx British Car Repair and you’re gonna want to give me a call. Your car is in pretty ba…”. My heart sank a little at seeing the preview but I just figured I’d be spending a little more than I thought to get the car on the road again. I wasn’t prepared for what I was going to hear when I finally returned the call.

This is not a direct quote, but this is essentially what I heard on the other end of the call.

“Hey man, I uh… Your car is in bad shape and I don’t recommend moving forward with the repair.”

I then asked what’s the list of repairs?

“Let’s put it this way. Your front wheels were about ready to fall of, so you need a complete front end rebuild. You’ve got about 20% compression in 3 of your 4 cylinders, the head is wrong, the brakes are shot, electronics are questionable and to get you right where I feel safe sending you on the road, it’s gonna be about $15k… and I haven’t even tried the transmission yet. Also, that’s with no body or interior work done. For the amount that you’re liable to spend just getting this car driving safely, you could get an MGB with perfect paint, sound mechanicals and a very nice interior. As much as I hate to turn down a big job, I hate to see you spend that kind of money. You’re better off calling it quits or just getting another car. I know it won’t be the same, but that’s just what happens sometimes. I’m sorry man.”

All of the air left my lungs and my brain went a bit blank for a second or two. Needless to say, I was both shocked and gutted. The only way to truly save the car and not spend twenty-five thousand dollars would've been if I dedicated the next few years to just working on the car by myself and got to the tedious work of sourcing parts from junk yards and MG clubs. That’s not the kind of project I was looking for for a fourth car no matter how much sentiment I’d attached to it. In a way, I really felt like I was losing my father again and that much like the first time… there wasn’t anything I could do about it.

I collected my thoughts and took the news the way you take news like this (Plenty of “I hear ya’s”, "uh huh's" and “I understand’s”).

After I hung up the phone and told my wife the bad news, it was time to sit down and have some tea and ask myself the question anyone would ask themselves after putting so much hope effort and money into something that was ultimately doomed not to work. “What the fuck was all of that for!?!?! And what do I do now?

To answer that, I had to look back at what I’d been up to over the previous 7 weeks as well as think through my faith. Yes, I am a Christian and I don’t hide it. So what did God send me to this final abrupt conclusion for knowing that I’d pinned a lot of emotions to the car. Heck, friends of mine and followers of my content were all excited about the car too. And now the car had effectively vanished into thin air. Was it all for not?

No. It wasn’t. I do quite well for myself in my day job and have managed to fund my car habit, I mean hobby without upsetting retirement plans, home operations and the like. But this was going to be one huge financial expenditure and I was going to need to cut costs in my everyday life to go through with everything in good conscious and not touch any obligatory funds. I scanned the horizon of my life looking for financial timber to chop down and I’d noticed something that had become quite rampant in my life since my father got sick for the last time and eventually passed away in my arms. That thing was drinking. I like a drink just as much other folks and well ... maybe I even liked a drink more than some folks. But during this timeframe, I noticed I was partaking every night. I wanted to feel levity. I wanted to feel some sort of escape. I wanted to feel transported away from a world that had left me so full of sorrow after the year long, slow, painful loss of my father. But I must tell you, drinking is expensive in so many ways. Alcohol itself is expensive no matter if you get it from a bar or the grocery store. The cost adds up and the positive effects don’t last long. As a matter of fact, the more you drink, the shorter the duration of any positive feelings. What's more, as your drinking ramps up and endures, feelings actually turn exceedingly negative. That is... unless you have one more drink.

I had already planned to take a little break from drinking to just reset, but I figured hey, how about I do like in the Bible. You know… fast for 40 days and 40 nights. At least with alcohol anyway. I thought to myself I was bound to save money doing that. And it turns out I did. Not only did I stop paying for alcohol, I stopped going out to restaurants and bars all together. My other shopping (you know, car parts and Amazon) became less impulsive as well. I learned to sit with my pain and boredom instead of running away from it or masking it. And you know what? It sucked. That's right. It was brutal and I don't recommend it to anyone trying to have a good time. But I recommend it to anyone looking to have a good life. Over time, I learned how to accept that generally speaking, most things of any significant consequence are out of your control. There is plenty you can do to try hedge your bets, but the final decision on everything that happens in this universe is not up to you.You just do your best to keep pushing forward and you deal with what you’re given. I also found that I enjoy tea, long walks and contemplating life. And you know what? Not drinking alcohol doesn’t suck anymore. I made it through the fast, plus a few days. Guess what else. I choose NOT drinking on a regular basis. I choose not going out to eat on a regular basis. And in doing so, I am choosing my health and my finances over quick gratification just because I have access to it. I truly believe my father is in a better place now and share my faith and stories with friends and family all of the time. And I do believe I was meant to choose to restore my first car. Because in choosing to restore that car, I also chose to restore a part of myself. A part of myself that I must admit I’d been neglecting for a decent amount of time. I don’t know if it was my father or God or a joint venture between the pair of them, but I was provided a life lesson at a time in my life when I thought I’d figured most things in life out. For my vast amounts of new insights and peace of mind, I have this journey to thank. I have God to thank and yes, I do also believe I have my father to thank. He taught me one last life changing lesson through that little car. Just like he did when he helped me buy it so many years ago. When I think back on it. This is the kind of lesson my father would teach me. When I was 13, he handed me an exhaust manifold out of a 1972 Chevy Suburban with a 454 v8. He said to walk down to the neighbor's house where it was parked and change it so we could get it driving again. When I asked him how to do it, he nodded reassuringly and told me I'd figure it out. It took me a while... but I did. I figured it out.

My last thought. I don’t think I’d have had closure had I simply given that car away to someone else who would have parted it out or eventually junked it. I would have always thought to myself, if I’d had kept the car, I would have done the right thing and kept another MGB on the road. Another classic. I’d have kept my father’s and my classic car legacy on the road. In the end, I spent time with the car. I spent money on it and I got tons of pictures on it. I reminisced and I hugged my mom frequently. And even though, the job turned out to be inadvisable in the end … I met it head on and was ready to take it the distance. Sometimes in life, that’s all you get to take home. You get to take home your integrity and some personal improvement. Well quite frankly, sometimes that's really all you need.