Being the consummate Gen xer here I got to experience some amazing movies, songs and experiences growing up in the 80s. My teens were filled with hours of M-TV music videos, iconic movies and books that shaped my childhood. I had a hard time in my teens but I still remember the good times being surrounded by iconic 80’s experiences. As far as movies go, Back to the Future will always be one of my favs as a young teenager that got bullied quite often, I loved watching MJ Fox get the best of Biff and his little posse of flat top haircuts. Michael J Fox will always be one of my favorite actors ever. His characters in movies and shows were always relatable to me at the right time.

I saw Back to the Future in the theater. I was 13 years of age and my hormone faucet was about to be turned on full blast for the next several years. In the movie Marty Mcfly, aside from his time traveling adventures, has a dream truck that he fantasizes about to take his high school sweetheart camping and adventuring with during the weekends.

It is of course a Toyota Tacoma. Marty yearns for it, he dreams about it. He, at the moment drove a skateboard.

If you’ve seen the movie Marty has quite an adventure going back in time to fix things without destroying his own life in the future but as time would have it he tweaked his future trajectory a tad and changed his childhood life and probably his adult one too by shaking up his family’s future.

Spoiler alert from 40 years ago (holy shit that hurt) Marty butterflied that effect, changed a few trajectories and when he came back to 1984 he found out that dream truck was already his.

I remember when I saw that truck on that giant movie theater screen my eyes lit up.

PING

PING I SAY

I remember thinking “man I fucking want that truck”. My mouth has always been a colorful one in fact I curse less now than I did at 13. Spend 5 minutes in a kitchen with me and you’ll know how bad it must’ve been

Back to the Tacoma. As I look back at what was going through my mind, I said the wrong thing at that time.

It wasn’t “I want that truck” it was

“I know that truck”

I knew that truck.

Recognition before understanding

You ever met someone for the first time and feel like you’ve known them your whole life?

Maybe you’re remembering.

Walk into a place you’ve never been before and think “this looks or feels familiar” or maybe an attachment to a new song.

I have gained some new perspectives on life recently. A unique camping experience last year rewired my mind and how I see things. I stopped seeing my future and past the way I used too. Without going off on another tangent worthy of 2000 more words in this journal entry I’ll be brief. You can change your past and future through perspective and understanding your reality. It’s not magic it’s science and I’m not smart enough at the moment to not destroy the theory through paraphrasing.

So I’m gonna skip some introductions I’m too deep to back up and explain where I am.

Life’s a giant story book. You’re the author.

Ever think you’ve already experienced your life? Book has been written, movie has already been directed and filmed. If you’re into the whole 5D thing time doesn’t really exist the start and finish is all around you. Sorta. You’re just reading or watching it from front to back even though it’s already happened. The chapters rewrite themselves as you make decisions based on your environment and experiences. It’s interactive like a video game. You don’t control the world but you can navigate through it. It how I perceive it – the mountain is still there, you still have to climb it but there are thousands of trails you can take to cross over.

*sighs

This is more difficult for me to explain than I thought.

Back to the Tacoma

I wanted the truck because I already knew the truck. Not just any Tacoma hell you’ll see 50 Tacomas on the road today if you’re driving to work on any given day. I’ve owned about 6 I believe I’m not going to pause to count I’ve had a few. The first time I tried to finance one my credit was shit from my DUI in the 90s when I had lost my job and fell behind on my bills. That pooped on my Tacoma party for about 5 years. I bought my first one around 2000 and shuffled through a few. I was a wrangler guy most of my life I like the top down life when I was younger. I’d go jeep- truck- jeep- truck for almost 20 years.

The truck didn’t become an archetype until my late 40s.

Archetype of

Freedom

Adventure

Exploration

Rebirth

My 13 year old mind wasn’t ready to understand that this archetype had already formed. It wasn’t really about the truck.. not yet. Trajectories had to happed first.

Experiences

Trauma

Misdirections

Understanding and navigating orientations

It wasn’t the truck. Well yes it was the truck

But

My mind pinged on that truck at 13 and I thought for the longest time that it was because it’s a just a cool ass vehicle. Toyota makes good reliable cars. I dig the body style but I’m no car guy. As I mentioned before I was a jeep guy. I’ve owned more jeeps than Tacomas. Each time I traded in my truck for a jeep I could hear my soul sigh.

“He’s not ready yet”

Me “what?”

“Oh nothing”

I didn’t start to get it until 2019 when I bought my truck before this one. I had owned my wrangler for almost 6 years. It had been quite the 6 years of volatility like something was trying to shake me out of that jeep like a salt shaker. Not because of what vehicle I was driving but because I was getting close to a big milestone in my life. I remember telling my wife “I’m trading in my jeep. This is the last one I’ll ever own. I intend on getting another Tacoma with a camper top on it, I want to start camping in my truck. I might’ve been drunk at the time I don’t remember but I do recall putting my phone down in my lap and announcing that out loud. Sometimes I wonder if it was really me or a kickstart of the real author of my book saying “it’s time for your life to change” because by golly it did right after it.

The author- “I’ve seen how this book ends, if you don’t write a new chapter now you never will”

Back in 1985 I saw that truck and thought man that’s a cool truck.

No I didn’t

Back in 1985 I witnessed my future.

“Hey there little guy. You may not know this yet but that truck you’re smiling at will become an archetype of what your mantra will be 40 years from now.”

Here’s your ping

*ping

I knew it but I didn’t yet know it. I didn’t until about a week ago while sitting on my tailgate. A little plop of spot that I’ve had many a revelations.

I loved the truck when I saw it because I knew what it represented not because it was shiny and new.

A trail marker of my soul. It’s not the truck folks. It is but it isn’t. I’m not heralding Toyota. I’m retracing the trajectories, the changes of orientation, the missteps that brought me here. The author of my book knew the importance of the representation of the truck.

It’s not the truck itself it’s the archetypal meaning

The freedom

Solitude

Adventure

Peace of mind

Slowing my life down

Finding my path.

I’d get close to my mantra and then pull away. Be it life’s consumption of careers and universal circumstances or soaking my brain in alcohol I’d sniff around the meaning and move on.

Once again let me say I’m not putting a pickup truck on a pedestal. The truck is just a truck there’s nothing extraordinary about it. It’s the roll it plays in my life.

It could be just a matter of random circumstances and coincidences that led me to this particular lifestyle. Or it could be an echo of emotions that took me several decades to tie it together.

I’m not big on coincidences. All the truck did was wink at me and say “see you on the other side” because that’s where I am now. I’m on the receiving side of that echo.

You don’t see certain things until you do. You aren’t meant to get some things until you’re ready. My 25 year old self would not understand where I am right now. My 35, 40, 45 years wouldn’t either. A story board needed to be built and completed. This truck and its mantra had to be timed and primed.

And here we are.

The dawn of realization comes when you let things go.

Not just the control of your life but the things that drag you in the current. For me it was obviously the bottle. Life changed when I did. That’s the only way your life will change is when you allow it to.

A movie about going back to the future. Just a coincidence..

It took me back to mine. I’ve grown more sitting on the back of my truck than I ever did sitting at a desk at school or standing at a prep table.

A ping that echoed for 40 years to find me.

A reunion of remembrance.

Trail marker.

I’ve remembered that truck for a long time.

Peace.