“There never seems to be enough time To do the things you want to do Once you find them“
Truth is I am still grieving the loss of Big Red. I get that he was just a pickup truck, I could have him welded, I made decision to take him off the road. Still I don’t know, life just seems a bit more empty without him. It was so easy to surrender the plates and cancel insurance, but not so easy to cancel is memory or his DBE 6911 plates out of my mind. I had a planned retirement for Red – April 2026 – which isn’t that far away but he didn’t hold out for that fateful day.
Time is the weirdest thing. It lasts forever until it is gone. Cancer lurks in silence, chews away at every bone. I knew about trailer hitch rust in some of it under wheel well but it didn’t hit me how bad it was until it failed inspection. You see the hints but it never seems particularly bad until the rust metastasis. You think there is another day and there always is until there isn’t anymore. Somehow I thought Red would make it through the winter, not let me down. Not have this gap.
Maybe it’s because I am riding my mountain bike at 8:45 AM in a freezing rain to get my teeth cleaned tomorrow. Whatever, I can take a bus or figure out how to get an Uber – or even call into work tomorrow if it becomes an issue. But it’s not same without Big Red. And I like riding, and hopefully the rain pulls out early. I think many people are surprised I am choosing to go without a car all winter, though I don’t think that surprises people when I push my mountain bike through 9 miles of snow and ice half the winter riding to work. And sometimes riding in the rain, but only when it’s unexpected.
Time is forever until it’s not, it’s the story I’ve seen play out so many times in my life – with dying loved ones, with friends, with institutions and everything else. Nobody expects things to just disappear. I always wonder about the health of my parents, I see them getting older, much like my old truck. Signs, even worrying, don’t necessarily mean the end is right around the corner, until it is. I look at those pictures of Big Red from 14 years ago, and it just seems like yesterday. I don’t feel 14 years older at this point, though I’ve progressed and matured in many parts of my career and life.
I keep asking myself do I really want a heavy-duty pickup? I think I can live with the gas milage of the Ford SuperDuty 6.8L or 7.3L gasses, they are in real world similar to my lifted truck. And I can get a HD truck without all the technology and gadgets so many cars have today. But especially with the 1-ton axle, it’s going to have such a crap ride, but it might hold up well on beating of rough dirt roads, gives me the option to do either a slide-in camper or big camper shell. Then I can tow a trailer with four-wheelers, a tractor, livestock, or whatever life brings to me in the next 10-15 years. I want the truck primarily now for camping, but I know at some point I’ll settle down, have that homestead and need a good solid truck. I really think half-ton trucks are the worse of both worlds, they’re more passenger cars then pickups. I really don’t see myself commuting to work in a vehicle any time soon. Even if I have to leave my apartment, I think I’d much rather have something in city until I have my homestead. But maybe I’m wrong, I like big trucks, real trucks, but maybe I’m find with a little Taco truck.
I have time to decide I tell myself. Just time. I was upset that I didn’t get to go to Colonie Planning Board meeting because Lynne wasn’t going to drive in the ice storm. I understand, and it’s not like I have a truck anymore but I don’t dare go alone, lest I think what I really think of all those planners. Or try when of my questionable political angles. So I came home, cooked up some frozen salmon, beans, onions, broccoli. And kneaded some bread, that’s rising now with 15-bean soup soaking in the freezer for cooking before riding my bike in the ice storm to the dentist to find out how much damage I’ve done to my teeth with all the coffee drinking at work. Maybe it just was the feel of the rain and sleet pounding on my face walking home from the bus stop.
Still I watch the time go ticking by so quickly. Why do I keep traveling? Don’t I want to settle down, by land, have my homestead? Land? Maybe a girl friend? In a free state, in a deep rural place, not somewhere with neighbors and big cities right nearby and up your ass? And all the regulation and crap to keep people safe in the city. Why do I keep delaying on building that off-grid homestead, besides of course the need to make money, save and invest – so I can do it right. Time has it’s advantages but also it’s costs. Money grows when you invest it and leave it alone, but it comes at the cost of time. It just keeps ticking away.
