Five Years on the Prairie

A milestone moment slipped by me recently like a ship in the night. Today, while driving my tractor-trailer, it occurred to me that I have been living in rural Northern Illinois for a little over five years and driving a tractor-trailer for over three and a half years. Time flies, as they say.

I moved to this part of the country for personal reasons and at times it seems like I left North Carolina a hundred years ago. After having no luck in finding work in the fitness/sports performance field upon arriving in Summer 2017, I found work in retail and became a store manager relatively quickly. But I wasn’t content. So I resigned my position, gave up my store, and started my own training company.

But I needed to find some work to make ends meet until business could take off and provide me with a living wage. So I went to truck driving school and took a job upon graduation. It turns out that there are plenty of companies willing to hire a newly minted truck driver.

Unfortunately, I discovered that working another job would impact my ability to drive for my employer. I discovered that I was required by law to log my time on any non-driving jobs too. Makes sense, as the authorities don’t want you driving fatigued from another job. So I made the decision to shutter Maness Mobile Fitness. Perhaps someday I will return to coaching and training athletes and fitness clients. Perhaps not.

With the pandemic, I am probably pretty lucky that I trained as a truck driver. While many people were on the bench at times during the pandemic, I was deemed “essential” and allowed to keep working. So aside from the time that I was out due to COVID-19, a pulmonary embolism, and a mandatory three-month waiting period before being cleared to return to driving status, I remained gainfully employed.

Anyway, I thought that I would share this milestone moment with anyone that might happen across my humble blog. If you would have asked a young Gregory Scott Maness if he could see himself living in the rural Midwest, I expect that laughter would have greeted the question. It just goes to prove the saying that, “You don’t know what the future holds” to be a truism. And I must admit that I don’t know what the next five years holds for me. Maybe coastal living. 🏝😁