The Journey (continued)

Although most of us can’t remember, we can imagine what it is like to be a baby growing up.

At first, we can barely make out that there is a world outside of ourselves, dim and distant and incomprehensible. We wait for things to happen to us and hoped they are good things.

As time moves on and our bodies develop, the outside world comes into clearer focus. But it’s still a mystery. We learn to do some things for ourselves, but we still rely on other people to teach us how the world works, how to get what we want, and even what to want.

We develop the belief that everything is known or else unknowable because, for everything we want, there is someone to teach us how to get it or else to tell us that we can’t have it. “Why?” we ask. “Because that’s the way it is”, they say.

We might notice that other people are doing other things, living other lives, but there's an answer for that, too. "That is them, this is you."

I think that’s the way it went for me growing up because I remember, just after my 25th birthday, I was sitting in front of the tv when it suddenly occurred to me that I was late in doing what I was supposed to do. I didn’t have a husband or children or a house.

Not that I necessarily wanted those things. I just realized in that moment that I had always believed that they would happen. And they hadn’t. Now that was okay, but, if that wasn’t my plan, then there was no plan for my life! And that was so scary that it really freaked me out, as we used to say.

So, I did what any woman in my situation would do.

I decided to become a truck driver.