I’m sitting on the metro-link train. I caught it from union station, salve Los Angeles.
Where are you going, you ask? “Beginning of getting myself around Los Angeles” is my answer.
I have decided to give up my car. I returned my leased vehicle today. Today is also my dad’s birthday and I find that significant, pill since he taught me how to drive at the age of 12 – yup, 12 years old is when I first sat behind the wheel. I have had my own car for 20 years.
I’m doing an experiment. A two-month (possibly extended if it goes well) trial of not have a car in Los Angeles. Now, if anyone had asked me if you could live in LA without a car in the past, I would have screamed “nooooooooooooo…..way!”
Well, here I am. One of the catalyst for this inspiration is that I’ve just signed a year lease on an apartment that doesn’t come with parking spot, so it’s street parking with only one side of the street that’s available because it’s an older narrow street that was for the horses and buggies (my guess) back in the day, not wide SUV’s and even the sedan sitting on both sides of it.
Then there is the annoying street cleaning days, which throws out both sides of the street for two days (each week) to find a spot to latch on to.
I knew my lease ending date was coming up, and I started thinking “hmmm…I wonder what life would be like without a car…?” I had already tried Uber and Lyft, and I felt this was a great way to travel around. I started wondering…”would transit, and Uber/Lyft be the same/less/more than lease payments, insurance and gas…?”
So here, begins the experiment.
I have to be honest with you – I have still never rode a bus (or any other transit) in Los Angeles. I’ve got to break that virginity soon. I kinda don’t want to ride it the first time by myself. I feel like a kid riding the bus for the first time (again)
There is such a ‘status thing’ in LA to have your own car. Riding a bus?! That means you don’t have a car, which means you probably can’t afford one, and that means…all the things we make it mean.
Well, I’m breaking my own status-stories about it. Every other city I’ve travelled to I take the transit system, and get around easily.
Now, there is another layer of acceptance that I have. I accept that I’ve manifested something that I’ve wanted for myself.
In my Enlightened Women ~ Lifestyle Program (which I finally chose the right slogan for this week: Healing Within Is Where We Begin), we do an ENVISIONING exercise, where we describe exactly what we want with the smell, taste, and feeling of it.
And, it works.
I envisioned having ‘a driver’ to drive me around so I could do less driving and more relaxing in the car. Well, I not only have one driver – I have as many as I want! Now, that’s manifesting at it’s best.
I was kinda nervous the last few days coming up to this morning where I needed to drive the car to the dealership and drop it off. I reassured myself that at any time, I CAN go to a dealership and sign up for another lease, and just knowing this made me feel that this is a choice I am making right now for the betterment of my life.
So, this morning, I ran a few errands, went to my favorite grocery store, Erewhon, and then felt this sense of completion with this car. I called my energy back from it, and gave it’s energy back to it so that I was no longer connected or attached to this material object. (This powerful “Calling back of Energies” exercise is also something we do within our Enlightened Women ~ Lifestyle Program).
I’ve been asking for more stability, grounding and less travel…well, I surely have curbed that now, haven’t I?
I smiled as I was about to arrive at the dealership today and then as I returned home without my car, I felt liberated.
I’ll keep you posted on my journey…
