Date: 2005-02-03
To: Freedom And Remembering
Miles today: 0.0

Last night was fantastic. I remembered the joy and carefree happiness of my teenage years. It hit me by chance, and by choice like a window looking at my past, and my future. I was riding home from Paoli, the town where I go to go Snowboarding a few times each week and I experienced something I have needed for a long time. That experience was the ability to feel free. Free from worry, free from concern, free from debt, free from negativity, free from melancholy, and free from the machine-like existance I have been living in this chapter of my life. I will first explain the overwhelming happiness of my teenage years before I explain the experience of last night any further... When I was a teenager, my father employed me as a truck driver in the family business. (The previous year I worked in the warehouse.) That summer driving the truck changed my life as I found something that I loved doing and I also got paid to do it. I loved everything about the life I was living at the time that summer. I would wake up, and drive to work down River Road with the windows open and the morning fog and humidity would smack me in the face as I guzzled a mountain dew to get the morning rolling, I felt like I owned the morning since no one else was out and awake yet and I had a jump start on the rest of humanity, as they slept, slumbering in a state of unconsciousness. I would drive around a truck all day and make about three or four big runs a day. I didn't really spend much time loading and unloading, most of my time was spent on the road, and stopping in and out of places to get a liter of Coke,O.J.,or Sweet Tea to keep me cool and also stopping in places to relieve myself of all of those fluids! I would drive through these small towns and cities daily and I got to know almost every gas station clerk in a two hundred mile radius. I felt like I was on top of the world, driving around, conquering so much land and territory, and knowing it all like the back of my hand. I would have no worries, and would just listen to the radio turned up so loud I couldn't even hear myself screaming along with the speakers pumping out the latest country hits of the day. I had no bills really, I had no worries, I had to drive to point A, and that was it. I didn't have to struggle with any pressing issues and I had no monetary concerns at all. I WAS FREE.I WAS HAPPY.Listening to the radio, I knew every song, and every lyric would belt out of me with a goofy passion as I entertained myself out in the middle of nowhere in rural Kentucky. I felt like a king, roaming his huge territory, in some sort of midieval place. I covered so much land daily and nothing could stop me. I was on top of the world. I felt like I was in heaven, like god and me had some secret plan and that I was blessed to conquer all and nothing owned me, no bills, debt, commitments, obligations. And then last night, Driving home from Paoli, I chose to turn off NPR, and not jump to the AM talk shows. I chose to not pop in a CD. I wanted the radio. The radio was pulling me to it from my drivers seat. My CD's have been listened to frequently but they isolate me in my truck, without an outside connection to the world. When I would listen to the radio as a teenager, the radio kept me attached to the outside world and it provided me community or some sort. I was suddenly not alone with the radio pumping out the latest country tunes. Suddenly I remembered a time when I wasn't a robot. I left my financial concerns behind me, I left my job behind me, I left my commitments behind me, and it was just me and the radio, both singing as loud as we could, free, free like the music to float and wonder where it wishes, touching the world, and conquering the quietness.Let me explain that after a few years of driving the truck, I had to move on to college. After various schools and life experiences,living in different states, I finally came back to Louisville two and a half years ago to finish school.Yesterday, I found myself living in a machine-like existence to accomplish my goal, of graduating college. I had to do whatever it would take for the past few years to finish college, and for me, it took turning off all emotion and feeling, and accomplishijng the small daily tasks associated with finishing school and working the job that allowed me the ability to work good hours to finish school. I was blessed to get my job, and to attend school, and I was determined to do it, and I am going to.However, yesterday was a reminder, that this machine-like life I'm living is only temporary, and I saw the light that is the future of my life, freedom, once again in a short while. Last night was a reawakening, and it also scared me.I am scared that the majority of people have never experienced happiness like I have. I was blessed with an amazing family, and with great opportunities, and I have experienced happiness, and I will not stop until I find it again, and I know where it lies, in FREEDOM, the same freedom I felt as a teenager with no worries, driving around in a truck singing really loud with the radio. So many people are currently living the way in which I am living right now, but they aren't doing it to finish school, or to obtain some goal, there are doing it because they don't know how much happiness and freedom are actually out there. I don't know how, but I want to convince people that happiness is out there, and it lies in freedom, and they need to fight like hell to experience it.I was blessed, I have said it many times, to have the family I have, to help me, but the opportunity is available to everyone out there, because ultimately the choice resides in us as individuals as to what we give our lives and existence to. I hope I can find a way to share my excitement about freedom and happiness. Nothing can stop someone with a goal, we can do ANYTHING we want to.I hope to convey this message to everyone. What an awesome ride home.