Been doing this for years. Before trucking I never thought much about holidays. Now I think about them differently than most people ever will.

Right now my kids are probably doing the egg hunt in the backyard. My wife texted me a video. I watched it three times already at a rest area outside Elk City with my coffee going cold.

Here’s what nobody tells you about this job and what I’ve figured out after years of therapy and too many miles alone with my thoughts:

The loneliness isn’t the hard part. The hard part is watching everyone else experience time normally while yours gets chopped into dispatch windows and 34 hour resets.

Easter, Christmas, birthdays. They happen whether you’re home or not. And you either make peace with that or it eats you alive.

What I’ve learned is this. The guys who last in this industry aren’t the ones who stop feeling it. They’re the ones who let themselves feel it for a minute, at a rest area, with cold coffee, and then they put it in a pocket somewhere safe and they keep driving. Not because they don’t care. Because they care about everything waiting for them at home.

If you’re out here today, I see you. You’re not missing Easter. You’re working Easter. That’s different.

Drive safe out there. Keep the shiny side up.

And if you got signal, call home. Even just for two minutes.