I will never be the same from my time on the road.

That’s a basic premise of everything I write. Transition, vanishing points, and the prison of my escape still stand as the most meaningful of all the love-hate relationships I’ve embraced in my life. Trucking was my lover, and it was so even long before I had my first date that lasted more than a heartbeat. From the moment I could keep my dad company on our treks across the west, I was addicted to perpetual motion. I knew what I wanted to be even though I was smart enough not to.

If there is one theme that still stands as the song of my life, it would be that reality. For years after my accident, I kept hoping for a miracle-one that would land me within range of a DOT medical card so I could buy the Kenworth of my dreams and pursue a non-profit business model-which is about as good as it gets these days in the land of $4.00 a gallon giddy up go juice. I’d spec a KW W-900 the one with custom paint, a studio sleeper, plenty of chicken lights and a fold out desk. I’d once again start collecting stories from the road as I did for 17 years prior to the big crash. I’d be happy and miserable, free and trapped, in full motion and stationary just as I always was.

But so far that miracle of modern medicine hasn’t been on God’s to do list.

Which has translated, and not so neatly, into my very personal, five year long lesson in acceptance. I’ve stuck out the pain of having to learn to put down roots, and what it takes to try to sustain relationships, an Achilles heel that prior to this chapter was best defined as just passing through and best kept that way. That means sticking through relationships with family, with friends, and with myself and the unpleasantness that always results from outstaying your welcome.

Back in the good old days of trucking, relationships worked best for me in micro-bursts of hello, catch up over dinner and say goodbye while the getting was good. No one had time to get sick of me, there wasn’t enough face time to spawn actual conflict and it was all about the romance of having lots of smiling “It’s so good to see you again” folks in one’s life. The downside of human interaction, actually making your way through the in’s and out’s of being present with others over the very long haul, wasn’t part of the equation.

I am really handicapped at relationships. It doesn’t matter what kind of relationship it is-friendship, relative, or significant other. I have a hard time getting out of my head. I’m too busy talking with myself to actually speak out loud. I listen with the detached ear of one who learned to monitor the C B radio listening for key words such as brake check ahead, smokey in the median, or meat wagon heading west. Talking to others and accomplishing intimacy, was out of range in most cases. Escape or avoidance works so much easier. I don’t like facing the crashing of my idealistic views of how I thought one person should always talk to the other, what is fair in engaging our passions, and doing all that golden rule stuff in equal measures. The lack of guarantees in relationship building hardly reassured me. Communicating, the painful act of barring your soul and