200 miles, 200 miles my fellow fu’s is what stands between me and what will be the last four days I have off in the next 150+ days. And while part of me looks forward to some of this time with great jubilation a lot of me is also torn regarding it. Home for me is not home, when I take time off at home as the company refers to it I drive to the town of Pittsburgh to an apartment held by my son’s “Mother Figure” while she goes and visits her mother for a few days. But home is not home the rooms are not how I would set them up. And the feeling I get from the atmosphere within is that of me not belonging,. Eventually I’ll go forth and establish a place of my own once I have began to see more of a profit in my business venture. I feel more like a visitor to someone else’s abode than I do of being at a home. Going home also with sadness I take this time off because I know Tuesday when I step into the truck that it will be without my son. And after having had a great summer spending time together…the truck will surely feel a lot more empty then it did before.
It is hard to explain the feelings this truck driver feels when facing time off. It is something we look forward to for months at a time, a chance to get away from doing what we do 24/7 months on end and yet, and this is more so for those of us who are single than those who have another on end, when the time off finally arrives and we finally do go home after about 3 days we are at odds with our selves out of sorts so to speak. In fact most other truck drivers I have talked to, especially ones I’ve established as friends since beginning this job, have stated that they have the same feeling after about a week home that I feel. While out on the road I can’t wait to get back home and yet when at home I can’t wait to get back out on the road. I’m not sure this is because of our gypsy nature of constantly being on the move or maybe it is just in the near matter for longing for routine. Home equates normalcy I guess and the life of a truck driver is far from normal. Then in some ways I think it’s harder for us Single Drivers than a married one or somebody with a loved one in their life when it comes to going and being home. For the married couple or those with a special someone, home is a place of love and special moments shared. For us single drivers it is a place to collapse from our daily grind which has worn us down over several months and quickly recharge and then… what? If home is for example like me, two-thousand miles away from any of our family members, then you won’t see family… and friendships tend to disappear during the long absences that us long haul drivers have away from home. So home to us is an empty place.. An empty building and also be a reminder of dreams or wants in life unfulfilled.
For me going home is not going to a home right now , eventually within the next year I hope to have a home or at least a space to de-stress from the life I live on the road. As my son quickly discovered by being with me the past month and a half, a drivers life is filled with stress from the moment we awake to the moment we go to sleep and comes in many forms. I guess you could say I’m not going home to my home but going to my son’s home since that is where he is during my time on the road.
Sometimes I feel that the life of a truck driver is nothing more than that of a mobile hermit constantly on the move and never at rest. Maybe that is why Pittsburgh does not feel like home to me. I didn’t grow up there and I don’t own anything there, the very few friendships that I have there have become faded with the time on the road. And this may be hard for those of you who walk into your house everyday and know your home to understand. Eventually though I’ll have a home t, a place and space of my own. Though whether it becomes actually a home or place that my bill pile up and wait for me to pay in between stops is yet to be seen.
And yet despite the fact I have looked forward to some time away from this vehicle inwardly I know that by Sunday or Monday I will feel that itch, the need to feel the vibration underneath me as I quickly slam the gears upward along the highway. Sometimes I think that my brothers and sisters out here on the road, and myself are completely fricking nuts. We must be. We live a life of seclusion to do a job that is with us 24/7, months at a time. There’s no break for us, sometime we can put in a fifteen hour work day but then unlike society we can’t leave it. Instead we move three feet to our bunks, to our home. Because of the lifestyle for some of us relationships and friendships completely crumble due to our long absences. Birthdays, holidays missed special moments, and yet time and time again we climb into the truck start it up and roll on. We keep America moving by keeping your shelves filled and we do more than that, we protect you. It was two of my road-brothers that blocked the rest area ramp when the Washington shooters were found. We are the ones who keep alert of missing children and amber alerts. We see the terrorist do not poison your food supply, taint the things you use in everyday life with the purpose to do you harm. While our soldiers fight to protect our rights overseas the truck driver protects her from within and does it most of the time unrecognized. Sorry about that little rambling part of what me and my road-brothers do, I tend to think some times people think we just drive a truck when there is so much more to what we do and how we live. Many of us have watched as our personal lives lay in tatters because of the profession we do. We’re fricken nuts I tell you to do what we do. I’ve seen this cost me valued friendships and a potential relationship or two. What sort of idiot would chose a life of mostly suclusion when they desire exactly the opposite……..(raises hand) this type of idiot I guess.
And yet I wish I could say this four days I was going to take off is for relaxation and play but it’s not. True I have a feeling I will spend my first day home in a bathtub and then collapsed on my bed in a near comatose state. But this trip home is more about setting up my own future, my own life,. Coming up with my future personal and business plans. Part of it will be set forth regarding my son of the coming year while I’m on the road and he’s at home. As well as trying to grab hold and embrace the last few final hours I have with him before not seeing him until December. For a long time now I’ve sort of lived in limbo regarding home. As my sons “mother figure” and her new boyfriend begin their journey relationship-wise, It’s awakened me to the fact that I’ve allowed myself to live in a state of being in limbo. But now as I watch what was one household do to convenience become two I realize that it’s time I awaken to the fact that for a while I’ve not been true to myself, my wants or desires in life. Or true to establishing a direction for myself and life simply do to comfort on how things were. So this time off is not necessarily time off but, but time spent moving in a direction of life. This will be probably be one of the last few times that I refer to Pittsburgh as my home. Not because I don’t like Pittsburgh, its’ a decent town in all but it also been a pain to get there for time off. I realize I will have to pick somewhere closer to a main highway that trucking lines use or even a residents closer to where the company I drive freight for is based. That should be an interesting experience to say the least but exhilarating for starting out again and I have to look at after all Im going to be there “All the time”. But hopefully with the location change I can be there more than once ever six months *Laughs* for now I guess I’ll have to settle for home to be this $107,000 vehicle that I drive up and down the highway.
I also haven’t been true to myself or the nature of the person that I am. Allowing my Dominant nature to be pushed aside in order to not allow the delicate balance of things to be upset. I realize as well that is probably part of the reason I haven’t been happy lately. It is time to get back to being the actual person that I am. To return to the values and teachings of the lifestyle I have learned over the years and lived by for so long until recently.
It’s strange in life how one can envision their life being and how what it becomes being totally opposite. I always envision myself being married coming to a home filled with love every night, that’s how I envision my life being and still a part of me yearns for that life maybe not a wife, but at least a loved one other than a six-six 200 pound monster of a son *laughs*, but you get the picture. And yet my life isn’t that picture or dream, not only is my life not that picture and dream but I’ve chosen a profession that makes it at least in my eyes near impossible to make such a dream reality, yes I say to you fellow fu’s us truck drivers most be insane.
WHy am I sharing these thoughts. I don't know. I guess in hopes that others will see that they are not the only ones to feel a certian way I guess. Or at least to free my mind from the demons within lmao.....
