Sometimes, what I think of as “the bones of the relationship” are not sound. You love someone more than you can bear to think about. Every day you are not with that person feels a little bit like being dead. You would spend all the money you have, burn all the credit you can get, put the rest of your life in jeopardy to make something happen with that person.

But that’s just a feeling, and the reality is that there are multiple problems that make a permanent relationship impossible. You don’t have enough to put into it. Other things are more important. So you walk away. Someone else will come along. He will be a full-time partner instead of a part-time lover. He will want all the time what you only wanted sometimes. And no matter how much you wanted it sometimes, you have to consider what the fair thing, the right thing to do, is.

So now my main man TonyK is the owner of my 944. He put eight hours in on the car yesterday and this morning, working through the night to fix her problems, address the issues I’d neglected for years. He will have a real, permanent relationship with her. I, on the other hand, took her to the track or an event every month or so and then let her sit lonely in the garage where, apparently, mice were eating her from the inside out.

It’s what’s best. But if Tony had stayed another minute, I might have had to kill him. I know what the right thing to do is. But I’m not prepared to be gracious about it.