TIME AND SPACE

Ever get the feeling your being followed? No, I'm not talking about the trailer in your mirror. I am referring to your tractor. It's like a ball and chain isn't it? Have you ever wanted to get away from your truck for a few hours? Personally, there are times (quite a few times in fact) when I absolutely have to get out of there. The walls tend to close in on me sometimes and if I don't get out of there for a few hours, I will wig out!

If this is something you have experienced on occasion, I have a solution for you. And by that, I don't mean to abandon your truck and just run off naked into the woods, although I am sure to some of you, that idea has enormous merit. But I'm thinking of something simple. Something relatively easy to do, like, going to the mall for example. I know, I'm a woman and so of course I would think of that. But setting my gender aside for a moment, (as if such a thing were even possible.) Going to the mall is a really great idea. There's always going to be enough room to park a semi. It's a safe place to be and there are scores of amenities. You see? A completely harmless and somewhat painless solution. Unless of course you have a problem with compulsive shopping, then it might get you into trouble. A lot of trouble.

However, if you don't trust yourself in a mall with all of its temptation, then park at the mall and go to any one of the ten great restaurants on the parameter. They have some really good restaurants at the mall, Chinese, Italian, Mexican, Western style steak houses. Its a buffet for the connoisseur. Granted they aren't five stars, but then five stars don't exactly consider tee-shirts and jeans, appropriate attire. In any case, you are there to relax right? So go relax, eat at the Olive Garden, they have the best salad this side of the moon. Oh and if you get the chance, order their Mixed Grill entree. You should skip the wine if you have to drive later, but they have great coffee.

Again, shopping with unlimited truck parking, safety, excellent lighting and great food. What more could you ask for? Granted not all malls are easy to get into and there are even some, who have the audacity to put up signs that suggest we are not allowed to even park there. But I have found a way to circumvent those annoying little 'NO SEMI PARKING' signs. Park the truck, go inside the mall and ask for the head of security. Tell him that you would like to spend some serious money there, and would it be alright if your rig sat on the outer fringes of their lot for a few hours? If you ask nicely, you might find them to be very reasonable. You know the adage, 'it doesn't hurt to ask....'

If that fails to get you out of the truck for a few hours, try going to a movie theatre. There is, (if you can get around the ten thousand islands) enough room to squeeze a semi. It might take a shoe horn, but if you are creative..... However, the mall is still your best bet. Especially since so many malls have movie theatres in them.

If you are one half of a team, I am assuming the better half, and you feel the need to get away from your partner's charming little idiosyncrasies (habits) for a few hours, the mall is your golden opportunity. You can walk in together if you wish, then go in two different directions and meet back at the truck later on. I say meet at the truck, just incase you or he loses interest in the whole idea and wants to go take a nap. Meeting back at the truck takes all the guess work out of the game and gives you a little more breathing room. Now before you object to taking a few hours to yourselves, trust me, it isn't against the law to split up for two or three hours once or twice a month. If your company expects you both to run like the 'thoroughbreds' they hired, then tell them you need to horse a round a little bit. Say it's a medical emergency. Explain to them that you will soon become a raving lunatic, certifiably insane and foaming at the mouth if you don't do this thing. If you have to, tell them it was all my idea. Tell them I am your therapist.

Most dispatchers like being difficult. It's in their job description (page 12 paragraph 14). They aren't supposed to allow you a little free time. If that is the case, here's another idea. Go into the truck stop to get something to eat but sit across the room from one another. No one said you have to sit together all of the time. No one ever said you have to shower together either. But let's not go there, okay? All I am saying is that if you drive team, then do what you have to do what it takes in order to make it work. Sometimes you simply have to get creative. I couldn't stay on the same truck as my husband. I thought it would kill me, but it has, in fact, made us stronger as a couple instead.

Getting back to the mall (again) Why do people panic when they see us pull into a parking lot at a mall? Is it because they think were going to run over someone's beamer? Are we known to throw trash (or worse) out of the truck, not caring who has to clean it up? If we are guilty of these offenses, then everyone of us are now paying the price for our collective indiscretion. If we are not the guilty ones, then unfair though it may be, we must suffer for the sake of those who have no conscience or worse, no common sense.

Are we fighting a losing battle? How can we change the general opinion about the industry if we can't stop calling one another stupid on the radio? Why is it, that every time I turn on the CB radio, all I ever hear is grown men squabbling and fighting like a bunch of juveniles? These are the very same men who at every opportunity, bad mouth their wives (ex or should be) all the while proclaiming their own innocence in the way things have gone so badly. No one on the air is ever at fault in a marriage gone wrong. They are always the victims in someone else's game. Well excuse me, but I am not a victim. I consider myself a great deal stronger than that.

I need to say this in case I have offended anyone here. It is not my intention to trivialize anyone's pain or to make light of what they are or have, at one time, gone through. I have had to walk through fire to get to where I am now. It was never easy but it was well worth the trip. I can understand to the ten thousandth degree, the situations some people find themselves in. I understand what it is like to suffer. I know what pain feels like in it's purist form. I have made a lot of mistakes and paid for every last one of them. Please do not think I'm insensitive to the hell someone can go through. I may be many things but insensitive isn't one of them. Overbearing? Impatient? Prideful? Stubborn? Yeah. Warped? Possibly. But insensitive? No.

If you have gone through a divorce, I feel for you, I really do. I can't imagine how painful that must be. To have all of your hopes and dreams end in disillusionment and bickering would be a horrific end to something that was once so good. It always amazed me how two people who loved one another so deeply, can turn on each other in such anger and hatred. And while it's true, I have never gone through that myself, I have watched a great many people endure the breakup of everything they once held dear. It isn't something I'd wish on an enemy. Perhaps this is why I waited so long to get married myself. To be honest with you, until I met Troy, I didn't believe in love. I thought it existed only in books and in movies. I really truly believed it to be a figment of Hallmark's imagination and that the card makers were responsible for the silly notions which governed the lives of romantics and fools. Now of course I believe differently. Not only am I in love, but I am crazy in love with a romantic fool. Ahh, the irony of it all.

Well, that's it for me. I was supposed to leave for Pittsburgh three hours ago. I hope you all continue to have a great month. From your therapist and friend, Julie Fricker