What's It Like to Be a Trucker?

#3 keeps Don company as he shines our truck rims 

One of the questions that we hear frequently from friends, family, and people that we meet is, "What's it like to be a trucker?" Some people are amazed that a normal, educated young couple like ourselves would be trucker drivers; a lot of people still stereotype truckers as old, nasty, stinky, and perverted. Other people are surprised that a woman can drive, that a couple can drive as a team, or that we would even want to drive a semi.

So what's it like to be a trucker?

It's hours and hours of sitting in a not-overly-comfortable seat behind a steering wheel, staring out a window at traffic and scenery.

It's a hundred thoughts and decisions running through your head at once, watching traffic - both nearby and farther out - trying to predict what the drivers of vehicles around you will do. It's slamming on your brakes because a car just cut you off and slowed down in front of you. It's knowing that you can't stop 80,000 pounds fast enough to prevent hitting a minivan that just changed lanes in front of you, traveling 35 mph to your 65 mph, and the lives of the kids in their backseat flash before your eyes.

Miles of desert 

It's watching the miles of roadway slip away, the trees or rocks or desert or fields all blending and blurring together outside your windows. It's watching a sunrise or sunset, admiring the way the sunlight reflects on the clouds, and wondering where your loved ones are and whether they're too busy for a phone call. It's talking on the phone with someone you care about, only to lose reception and drop the call.

It's traveling, seeing the country in snapshots from the interstates, passing by national monuments and natural wonders. It's the traffic congestion around big cities as thousands of people push their way forward in a self-centered mayhem of honking horns and angry voices. It's breathing more freely once you're out of the narrow city streets and back on the open road. It's a little kid asking you to blow your air horn, and the giant smile on their face when you do.

It's waiting for a late load, waiting for directions from someone five hundred miles away, waiting for a tire to be changed, and falling asleep waiting for the phone call assigning your next load. It's people with no concept of what your job entails trying to tell you how to do your job. For us as a team, it's living with your spouse in a space the size of a walk-in closet, working and communicating and sharing - and yes, sometimes squabbling - but always loving.

A recent load allowed us a quick visit with my parents

It's going home for a few days and realizing how much you need to get done in a short period of time. It's trying to explain to doctor's offices and realtors and family members that you're only home once a month, it's the only time you're available, it's really nothing personal. It's people that you love and miss asking when they will see you again. It's passing through the hometown of people that you care about and not telling them, because you're on a deadline with no time to stop and visit. It's missing out on birthday parties and family events and feeling like life is passing you by.

It's not forever, at least not for us. I keep telling myself it's not permanent. It has its ups and downs, its pros and cons, but it's not a bad life. I will forever be grateful for these years we spent together on the road, getting to know each other and ourselves as the miles pass. Someday we will be settled down and it will all be a memory. Someday my Pinterest boards full of chicken coop blueprints, casserole recipes, and parenting articles will come in handy. Someday the photographs of bucolic pasture scenes and mischievous children will be ours. But until then, I will be thankful for the time spent with my sweetheart, working toward our goals, seeing sights we may never see again. This is so much bigger than simply driving a big truck. This is what it means to me to be a trucker.