Last week I moved my clothes and my stuff out of my rig and accepted my boss' invitation to come off the road and begin work as a fleet manager for the company. My feelings, to say the least, are mixed.
I have been on the road for over eleven years. A trucker's life has always had its challenges, but the industry has undergone tremendous changes in the last few years which have made this decision much easier than it would have been previously. The chaos in the national economy, the 'de-professionlization' of drivers, the growing, uninformed hostility of the public, and the upcoming onslaught of crushing and hopelessly ineffective safety regulations are causing older and more mature drivers to hang up their keys in droves. We have been living in a world that hates us deeply and needs us badly, and many of us have grown weary of it.
And I am really not getting any younger.
On a more personal level, I feel okay, I guess. I will miss the relatively high degree of independence and autonomy I have enjoyed. I will miss the peacefulness of the long moonlit drives across nighttime deserts. I will miss the serendipity of that stray food cart which serves life-changing tacos and breakfast burritos, and the near-angelic presence of a truckstop waitress. I will miss the satisfaction of tasks completed without ambiguity and uncertainty and loose ends. I will miss the analgesic rhythms of the road. I will miss the solitude I did not afford myself for most of my life.
But, on the other hand, I will be in church on Sundays. I will see family and friends regularly. I will attend sporting events. I will cook and I will go the gym and I will lose the unhealthy extra pounds I put on behind the wheel. I will actually read books instead of just listening to them on the ipod. I will enjoy media on a television set rather than a laptop screen. I will learn to sleep without the hum of a diesel engine in my ears.
There are adjustments ahead, and I am up to them. Details will be faced and handled; furniture will be moved and deposits will be made; decisions will be made when they need to be made.
And I am again filled with gratitude for the grace, the truly amazing grace, that runs in and through and around our seemingly mundane lives - the grace that lets us say "goodbye" and "hello" and "thank you" and "wow!"
