Why I (Y)earn

An Essay on Gas, Grass, and Gig Apps

I didn’t choose this life for the dream. I chose it because it kept me moving when everything else tried to pin me down. The university boxed me in. The VA made me wait. The Navy sent me home stamped with an RE-3E on my DD-214. So I took the road. I took the apps. I took the grind.

But even the road comes with tolls.

No one rides for free. You pay in:

Gas: burning dollars a mile just to keep pace.
Grass: not what you smoke, but where you land — cutting through lawns, shortcuts between stops, moving soft and quick.
Gig apps: they give you routes, but not rest; pay, but not peace; freedom, but not forgiveness.

This trifecta — gas, grass, and gig apps — runs the streets. It owns the lanes. And I’m still in mine.

I (y)earn because I remember what structure once felt like.

I used to have a W-2. A platoon. A chain of command. Orders that made sense even when the world didn’t. Now? I got mileage, wear and tear, and a hope that the next app ping pays better than the last.

I (y)earn because I see the ones who stayed behind the desks. The ones who finished their degrees, clicked submit, climbed the ladder. I left the syllabus behind for the streets. But that doesn’t mean I don’t miss the rhythm of shared purpose, of something steady.

I (y)earn because I filed for my LLC — Alaska Transportation & Trucking — in November 2023, weeks after walking out of a classroom that never read me right. I turned my refusal into infrastructure. But I still miss someone else running the checklist. Someone saying, “Safety. Magazine. Chamber. Safety. All clear. All safe.” The cadence we were forced to memorize, the ritual that never left our hands or our heads — every time a weapon changes hands, every time we remember what it means to hold and release.

But I know better now. There is no clearance. Only roads. Only me.

I read Arendt in parking lots and Beauvoir in airport lounges. Not for class, but for clarity. Not for the grade, but for the grind.

What the academy refused to recognize, I committed to memory. What the VA delayed, I delivered on my own terms. What the labour market wouldn’t offer, I built into routes.

Gas keeps me mobile. Grass keeps me light on the lawn. Gig apps keep me alive. But writing? Writing keeps me whole.

So if you’re watching from the sidewalk, know this:

Stay in your mother-loving lane, neighbour.

Because I stayed in mine. Through the denied claims, the ungraded brilliance, the miles logged without applause. I paid the sin-tax with silence and rebuilt my theology on wheels.

No one rides for free. But I ride anyway.

I (y)earn. Because someone has to write the gospel of the road.