Last week, I received potentially bad news about my car, Felicity. The kind of potential bad news where you decide not to drive anymore because you could end up stranded on the side of the road or worse.

And since I have driven Felicity for almost seven years, I did what any grown woman would do faced with a similar quandry.

I cried.

A lot.

Friday, the boy and I put on our thinking caps. We knew that we were eventually going to have to get me a new car, but it appeared the time was coming sooner than either of us expected. BUT IT WAS OK. We would work through it. And we would be OK — more than OK.

(Those last four lines? That was what the boy kept saying OVER AND OVER again. Because I might still have been hysterical about Felicity.)

We decided to go car shopping Saturday afternoon before law school prom. (It’s a real thing, I promise. And I totally wore and rocked a gown I had taken in three years ago because it was too big!) After spending time at two dealerships, we decided to take home one of the cars to test for the evening. Because, apparently, dealerships let you do that kind of thing now.

And it was a good thing we did.

I noticed there was a strange reflection of the dashboard on the windshield, and it was distracting me. The longer I drove, the more I realized I felt like I was wearing the wrong prescription. Or wearing beer goggles. … It was bad. And I felt kind of dizzy when I arrived at home shortly after.

So we took the car back in the morning, disappointed but realistic. We weren’t going to purchase a car that made me sick.

Then I did what any logical girl in my situation would do on a lazy Sunday: I gave up. (Potentially bad family news also took a toll on me that day, as well.) The boy dropped me off at home, headed to another dealership for them to take a look at Felicity, and to figure out what else we could do.

He’s a smart guy, you know.

We had a long discussion Sunday night about what we were looking for, what we could afford, what I specifically wanted in a new car (which is nothing, really, because everything in new cars right now is SO MUCH BETTER than anything I’ve ever had in a vehicle. I mean, I had a tape deck until 2005…) And we came up with a gameplan for Monday.

We went to look at another dealership after the boy picked me up from work. We liked what we saw, but we weren’t sure if we liked it more than another car we had driven Saturday.

So what did my boy do? He called the other dealership to see if they had a better offer.

If there were any doubts in my mind about what he was supposed to do when he grows up, they were assuaged at this moment. He’s definitely a future lawyer. (As if I didn’t know that already by playing Monopoly with him and his family… Geesh.)

We deliberated some more. We talked with the sales reps. We decided to run out for a quick dinner and sitting at a tiny, empty Mexican restaurant, we made our decision.

And we took home a new car last night after spending time filling out the necessary paperwork.

…

I’m thrilled to have a new car. Not necessarily because it’s new, but more so because my boy has been waking up early so he can drive me to work every morning. And I work across town, about 14 miles from the house to my office ONE WAY. And because the public transportation in this town is not up to par.

I’m thrilled because this is our first REAL big purchase together as a couple. Both of our names are on the lease. And this has made marriage and all the things we will do together in the future seem even more real than it was before.

And I’m thrilled because this means we can take our lives off hold and start living them again to the fullest. You don’t realize everything you want to do until you don’t have the means to do it. Or to get there, in my case.

This car situation has made me more cognizant of how we work together, as well as how we compromise. And I think it has made us both realize how lucky we are to have each other. Because I honestly don’t know what I would have done if this happened in my small town a few months ago.

I have the hope that one day, we will be a one-car family again. By choice. But for now, we can’t make that work. It isn’t possible in this city, where we live, where we work and where we play. Someday, though? I can see it happening.

If nothing else, I think we learned a lot about each other through this experience. And that almost makes the heartache, deliberations and overall headache worth it.

Almost.