Today was just a small illustration of how this year has been the year of firsts that were not my idea to begin with, but I digress. I have been a licensed driver for going on 23 years and I've had my own license plates for about 17 of those years. Yesterday I was informed by a police officer that it's my responsibility to ensure that my plates are visibly legible. After 17 years and two accidents my plates had faded to almost complete invisibility. White letters on white background. I was let go without a ticket but I was advised to get new plates.
I've never had to do that before so I walk into the Service Ontario office thinking they have some crazy stamping machine under the desk, or perhaps a couple of convicts in the back pounding out the plates on demand. I was unaware that once I surrendered my old plates that they would be completely retired and I would get a whole new plate number. [Insert long sigh here.] I'd become so attached to that series of letters and numbers that it was almost part of my identity. It was like losing a part of who I am. Not to mention it was still part of the 6-digit series. It's like having a 416 area code phone number in Toronto, the original, denoting status of some kind. Most people thought I was missing a letter. And I was all, nope, that's how they did it in the old days.
It may sound like a small thing but it's an ending to another part of my life. Wishing I had a theme song to insert [here] because as much as this year has been about endings, it's also about beginnings. Today I began driving with legible license plates which was the last thing I thought I'd be doing.
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