Mothertruckers

I haven't written in some time, mainly because my choices were the following:

1) Take the blog in a direction I wasn't expecting;
or
2) don't write.

Even if this isn't what I originally hoped for, I've been inspired by a traveling duo of customers and I've found a way to apply it to my own life.

For the sake of this post, we'll call these two travelers Amelia and Charles (even though they aren't pilots). I met Amelia and Charles about two years ago while I was bartending one Saturday afternoon. They had a totally laid-back vibe, and were very friendly. As is usually the case with friendly customers, we began a conversation, and I asked where they were from. They exchanged kind of a funny look with each other and laughed. Then Amelia said, "Well, we're both originally from here, but we're kind of from everywhere. We don't have a fixed location that we live in because we drive a semi." I was immediately interested in hearing what they had to say. We've all seen truckers, and we all have our opinions and prejudices about where they come from and what kind of people they are, but how many of us have taken the time to talk to them?

Amelia and Charles told me their story that day. They had met in high school. Charles had not wanted to pursue a university education, but Amelia had. After she graduated from college, the two got married, but discovered they had a mountain of debt to pay back. Charles knew some people, and the two were able to lease a truck and begin work. Quickly realizing that most of their money was going toward bills that they hardly benefited from, the two decided to travel full time and stay in their cab overnight, taking only two three-week periods off per year to come home and visit family. In two years, they had paid off all of Amelia's student loans and saved almost $50,000.

Needless to say, after hearing all of this, my jaw was on the floor. I began thinking of all the things I could do with that kind of money saved up--a house, a new car, a vacation! I asked them what they were going to do now that they were in a good place financially. Amelia and Charles agreed that they liked their lifestyle. After all, they had no kids or other jobs to tie them down, and they had been able to see every one of the Continental 48.

After leaving me a good tip, the two were on their way. I haven't seen them since, but I still think about them every now and then. Having (somewhat) recently found out that I'm pregnant, I realized that I feel like I've been missing out on a lot. I can't go out in the same sense that I used to be able to, which was a big part of my social life up until late February. I can't even go for a run because I'm not supposed to get my heart rate up too high. I've been applying for jobs that won't require me to run around like a crazy person for 6-8 hours per shift, but so far nothing has panned out. I used to see so much ahead of me, and now I feel like I'm at a sort of dead end. BUT, I got to thinking about the mothertruckers (Amelia and Charles), and I thought that maybe I'm just not taking the time to enjoy the small things in life. I don't have a lot of money to go out and distract myself while I'm home alone during the day, so today I made myself a latte and sat down to read. I'll bet Amelia and Charles would be able to find a way to make that into a good day.