For the longest time, I was ‘a small car guy’, only driving subcompacts.
My favorite cars were two door hatchbacks that would execute the handbrake turn perfectly.
Lately things have changed. I sold my last hatchback and was left with the van.
I liked the van, but it never suited me that well.
Sure, it has a lot of room to move stuff and people. It just didn’t feel rigth.
Now, I have a truck.
This is surprising. I never imagined that I’d own a truck. I figured that at 50 my second mid life crisis would result in a Mazda Miata from the early 90’s. The engineering in those Japanese cars back then was incredible. Mechanical perfection with no computers.
Instead?
I bought a thirty year old truck.
I love my truck. I didn’t know that I needed a truck, but I did.
I somehow feel more complete, more whole, more myself with a great big old full sized pick up.
My truck gets compliments - genuine, wonderful compliments:
It’s in such great shape for it’s age!
The frame is solid!
It has a bench seat and no shoulder belt in the middle? AMAZING!
Look at the dash, it doesn’t even have a tape deck!
People love my truck for its lack of features. It has however one dominant feature that stands out above everything else. It has an eight foot box with a cap on it. No matter who says it and no matter how often I hear the words, I swell with pride every time I hear them:
It’s just so big.
Giggity.
It does have a huge capacity. Unlike the other things that I’ve owned, this thing isn’t darting, small, efficient or nimble.
In my truck, I have a lot of capacity. I take up a lot of space. Best of all, the truck is capable. Capable of hauling horses, capable of hauling manure. Capable of existing for thirty years on salt covered roads beside the ocean.
Some might say it’s because trucks are tough.
Trucks are not any tougher than any other thing on the road. Their steel is no more rust resistant than other steel. This truck is still around for a far more important reason that gets pointed out to me by everyone who sees her:
That truck has been so well cared for. That truck has been so well loved.
Hearing these words, I’m stuck by how much I’m like my truck - well cared for and well loved. What’s more, I have a huge capacity to both care and work. I haul a lot.
And the more I sit steadily driving slowly - ten under the speed limit, just like JR - the more capable I feel.
My buddy the Meat Manager had the second best line when he saw the truck. He’s another ADHD dude whose inability to sit still was taken as defiance rather than disorder. Intellectually gifted, he’s enjoyed a retail career cutting meat for a grocery chain.
Any Mr. Meaty took one look a the truck and said: Look at you buddy, you’re a real man now. You’ve got a truck. At fifty, your balls have finally dropped. Congratulations.
Twenty five years ago, I found statements like that both sexist and problematic.
These days?
Not so much. I like the banter. What’s more, having a big old truck makes me feel like my balls have actully dropped a bit. Something feels bigger anyway.
With the meat man my retort was both quick and crass:
Naww bud, you know big ole’ trucks like these are merely a compensation for having a small cock. I’ve just decided to join you in living honestly.
The best line came from Jed:
This truck reminds me of my grandfather. It smells like my grandfather.
No tape deck. No frills. No fancy four wheel drive, a short cab and an eight foot box?
It’s a classic work truck. No frills at all. It does what it has to then gets parked.
How I didn’t spend my life rolling around in one and doing good work for people is a mystery to me.
Now though, it’s time to right a historic wrong, which leads to this weeks offer:
Truck talk
I hate therapists. I hate therapists offices. Before I was a coach and I had a therapy office, I hated it too. I hated going there. And with other therapists, I hate going to see them. I do not trust them at all. Between my training program and personal therapy experiences I know hundreds of therapists. Of the therapists that I know, I would work with and trust less than one percent of them.
Most I’ve met have been decent people but they’ve been ‘too therapist-y’ too ‘woo woo’. Most have had an invisible bias against dudes like me. Most of all, I hate their taste. I hate what’s the ‘industry standard’ for therapy offices, massassage therapy offices and holistic clinics.
With minimal designs and ultra clean lines, offices at holistic clinics fill me with the urge to poop on their floors and smear my turds on the walls.
Well designed offices with soft lighting, pastel colours, a zen sand play station and the word ‘hope’ as a painting hanging prominently beside a clock that records a 50 minute hour…
So gross. Kill me now. The only thing more feminine than a therapist’s office might be a maxi pad factory.
It’s no wonder dudes don’t want to go ‘talk to someone’. The places are built to make the people we dudes struggle with the most (out partners) feel comfortable while reminding us that this, like most of the house, is not our place.
Fuck that noise.
There is a different way.
We can have therapy in different places, outside in the shed, outside in the woods and of course:
Truck talk.
We meet in a Tim Horton’s parking lot. After we both do the drive through, you come join me for a coffee and conversation in the cab of my truck. We chin wag for a couple of hours in a place we’re both comfortable.
You’ll get to ‘go talk to someone’ and get help, without the discomfort of going to and sitting through the agony of being under the microscope of a therapists judgement.
If there’s no snow, maybe we go for a little drive, just to change things up a bit.