My parents gave her to me when I was twenty-one. She wasn’t the prettiest car around, or the fastest – but she was mine. A rusty brown colour worn to grey in places, with the square practicality of an old-lady sedan. She was as old as me. I named her Sarah.

I am a dreamer, not a driver – a brown-haired, brown-eyed girl with a knack for fading into the background. Few of my friends had cars, so Sarah carried us everywhere – to a Manga bookshop in Sydney; to my best friend’s small-church wedding; to the hospital when my nephew was born.

Once, Sarah and I cheered up my much-younger friend by giving her a first driving lesson at midnight in a church carpark. My friend was fifteen; Sarah and I were twenty-three. We screamed a lot that day, and my friend eventually learnt to remember where the brakes were. Sarah took her knocks without complaining.

I was in love around that time, and shared Sarah with the object of my unrequited affection. He crashed her once (only a little) and of course I forgave him. As I reversed out of his garage one day, with my eyes on his clean-shaven face, Sarah and his garage wall met in a manner she wouldn’t soon forget.

'Hmm,' I said. I blushed, terrified he'd yell at me. 'I hope your garage is okay.'

My man (not that he ever became mine) got out and had a look. I saw his eyebrows lift. I was sure he was overreacting until I saw the dent myself. Who’d have thought a little ding would carve a hole in Sarah as big as my head?

Later on he kissed me through the open car window. He kissed me hard, as if he'd never kiss another. That day, I thought my struggles were over.

He's married now, to a very nice, neat girl with no dents on her car.

That corner – the right front corner, the corner closest to me – always seemed to bear the brunt of my distractions, or the tiredness of my girly arms without power steering. I am not a strong person.

While trying to make a living I hit it again, hard, when I was twenty-six. The blinker lense didn't have enough of a frame to hold on to, and I was told Sarah was done. As a last-ditch effort, I inveigled a meeting with a friend of a friend. He and his father unscrewed that part of her. There were a lot of spiders underneath. The father and son mechanics jumped on that bit of Sarah and hit it with a hammer until it was roughly car-shaped again. They put it back on, and I bought a new blinker lense for $50. Sarah lived on, somehow - losing the occasional piece along the roadside.

I lent Sarah to my brother, and she somehow lost her driver's armrest. I learnt the knack of pulling the door closed with a twist of the wrist and a quick release of the door handle at the right moment.

Not so many years later I was in love again, although my new boyfriend and I had just broken up. We still went to Sydney together, for some reason. My grandmother was there, in hospital – and my new ex had a medievalist tournament to go to. He took me to a party and did his best to form a threesome with two other gay men. I felt guilty for letting his sexual tension build up over the weeks we’d been together. His threesome didn’t work out - not that night - and he left with me.

I was dazed, overwhelmed by the bright lights and my ex-boyfriend’s beauty. Driving and love don’t mix. I dropped him off at his friend's house. It was very hard not to call him back to me, and kiss him through the open car window. But I'd learnt that lesson once before. I drove away alone.

I ambled around central Sydney for hours, too exhausted to hold directions in my head. At last I panicked, and felt I had to get off the road at once. I smashed Sarah into a curb and stopped dead in somebody's front yard. Without looking, I knew I'd pushed her to new depths. Some nice drunks hitched a ride and set me on the best path back to the hospital apartments. Sarah’s bumper bar dangled threateningly for the next four years.

I found my way eventually, and slept. The following day I gave my ex a lift back to Canberra. On our way my mother called, telling me my grandmother was dying - the grandmother whose name I share. We met my Mum and Dad at Goulbourn Maccers. Mum bought us food. “I’m sorry I don’t have the right change,” she said to the boy serving us. “My mother is dying.”

Poor, broken Sarah carried me home.