Going back to OTR with Schneider Lease Purchase!

I'd say he thought he was playing trucker hockey goalie and didn't want anyone to slide inside the net.

Thus preventing any GOALs

 

So since my last post I've taken some time to reflect.

I overreacted when my load cancelled. I felt like a failure. When I called my wife to tell her not to expect any money from me for what seemed like the 4th week in a row, I became hysterical. Apologizing in a fog of tears, for I felt if I can't help provide for her and for us, I'm no good as a man, or a husband. Just a useless husk stealing oxygen from people who achieve more than I could.

My wife ended up calling my parents to try and calm me down, to help me realize it's only a single minor setback. But the sound of my father's voice, in that angry irritated tone, telling me to suck it up and telling me how easy it is to just move on, got me heated. I didn't wanna hear him chastise me anymore, as that was my primary motivation for moving out at 22, even when I hardly had the means to do so then.

So I punched the inside back wall of the sleeper. And broke my hand. Like a careless fool. Like the overemotional idiot my father expected to be talking to. An hour later at a Chicagoland urgent care I was diagnosed with what's comically called a Boxer's Fracture, as there's really only 1 way a person could sustain that. They put me in a splint and I've been driving since, picking up my load from Indy to LA. I'm currently in Kingman AZ, bound for delivery tomorrow and I'll arrive around 6-7am. I've also planned myself back home with a stop in Modesto.

I only plan to stay from Sunday until Tuesday. Should be a sufficient amount of time to get the truck damage from December estimated and sent to my insurance, get a tooth filling at a dentist and have an ortho examine my hand, which hasn't been exhibiting pain in nearly 36 hours. Then I'll get back to work. If I can make the food tasting appointment in CA for my wedding reception in 3 weeks, great. If not, great. At this point I only plan to take a few days off for the wedding ceremony itself.

I'm not giving up though. For some reason it's the one thing about me that I can't do. I may have walked into this a couple weeks shy of bankruptcy. I may hold on to guilt and mistakes from years past, from old relationships, from things I've done because I have a difficult time forgiving myself. And because I can't forgive myself for these things I'll take it out on myself, whether physically or mentally. If I can't live up to my own expectations it's hard to forgive myself. Everyday mistakes burn in my mind for hours. All these things compress in the back of my mind until something innocuous, like a cancelled load or a snide comment in my direction, sends me over my tipping point.

It's not normal, it's gone on for 20 years too long and I'm finally going to seek help for it. But for all my crap, my flaws, my insecurities and the anger I hold at people who now no longer remember my name or what I look like, when I make a commitment to something I never give up. Broken hand be darned I'm gonna drive this truck. I'm gonna make it. I won't just survive, I'll thrive.

Hopefully.

 

I just went back to the drawing board and, now knowing my business and personal expenses to the tee, I calculated my cost per mile and the goal I need to reach.

Based on 10k miles a month or 2500/wk, my cost per mile is $1.15/mi. This includes taxes and an allowance for tolls & prepass.
My personal expenses outside the business have dropped significantly since my house was just rented out, so I'm looking at $0.24/mi. So I need to average $1.39-$1.40/mi to keep myself afloat. Not impossible, but with the western 11 freight I see right now, not easily done.

To make good on those numbers and more I'll have to find my way back east of I-35 again, and I hope I can manage over here well enough to wait it out.

 

I looked right now and I forgot how cheap domestic flights are! For example I found a flight two weeks out from Chicago to Salt Lake City and back for only $158!! Parking in Gary Indiana and hailing an Uber to the airport definitely beats driving the truck with cheap freight