Up until this year, the biggest birthday gift I’d ever bought myself was a trip to Antarctica. 40 was a big deal for me, and I commemorated that milestone in a big way that I didn’t think I’d surpass—at least not until I turned another age with a zero in it.
Last week, though, I turned 47 and bought a pickup truck. A brand-new one. I’d never purchased a new vehicle for myself, and the last time I’d bought a new vehicle at all was for my wife in 2006. I got a good deal on the “oxide bronze” Toyota. But the sticker price equaled what I had paid for my 1990 Cutlass Supreme, 1992 Nissan 240SX, 1997 Volkswagen Jetta, 2005 MINI Cooper, and 2014 MINI Countryman—combined.
While I waited for the truck to arrive from Ohio, I told a handful of friends. I didn’t know what to expect as a response, but I was surprised by the theme of the replies. “A truck? Wow. You don’t strike me as a pickup guy.”
This cumulative surprise made me ask myself—only after I’d signed the papers, “Am I a pickup guy?”
I’ve been driving MINIs for 19 years, but I’m not the typical MINI driver. I don’t own any shirts with a Marvel character on them. I don’t have a color streak dyed into my hair or black gauges in my ears. I’m not an almost-retired Human Resources Director or a lesbian literature professor. I’m not a boomer with a tiny dog or a sorority pledge who uses sunglasses as a headband.
I’m a gray-bearded dude who wears a baseball cap every waking hour. Instead of watching TV, I hike trails by headlamp. (I’m writing this from a camp chair in a mountain river outside of cell service.) I use my off-road motorcycle to sleep in a tent next to dirt roads. I’ve whitewater kayaked, rafted, or river-boarded in five countries. I spend a third of my billable hours advertising used farm machinery and construction equipment. I pull a trailer full of traffic cones 50 weeks a year.
Recently, an influential author described me like this in a post called “Guy to Guy“:
Ryan is a guy’s guy. The kind of guy John Eldredge would be proud of. He describes himself as “an adventurer” who has pursued “adrenaline rushes and encounters with the Divine on all seven continents and both polar circles.” He’s plunged off cliffs, paraglided in nine countries, and walked on biplane wings 3000 feet in the air—twice. He also leads his church’s parking lot greeter team and shepherds a “Dude Group”—a spiritual adventure community for men.
Typically, this guy drives a truck—or at least an SUV with significant ground clearance.
Maybe the disconnect is that I’m also a man who doesn’t own a firearm and who has logged almost 300 hours of talk therapy. I spend my vacations in countries where English isn’t the official language. I don’t believe a husband has a spiritual trump card or always gets the final say. I absorb an average of 30 books a year—many of which are memoirs of vulnerable women. I listen to podcasts that critique American evangelicalism. I fold laundry to calm my nerves. I’ve made massive relational and financial sacrifices to advocate for sexual abuse victims. I voted for a woman for President.
I’ll admit: typically, that guy doesn’t drive a pickup.
I bought a newer daily driver because my car suffers from the arthritis and scars of any person nearing their assisted living years. I own an 850 credit score and a business having a boom year. It was time.
I bought a new vehicle because I’d rather have a monthly obligation than sporadic bombs dropped into my hectic life. I also wanted the freedom of choice. With so much in my business, relationships, ministry, and country happening beyond my control—or even influence—I wanted autonomy. I didn’t want to drive a vehicle whose options someone else chose years ago.
After years of needing to take my MINIs hours away for service, I bought a Toyota so that I wouldn’t see a mechanic anywhere near as often and so that the one I would see could be three miles from my house. After a decade of driving a vibrant yellow track car with loud graphics, I switched to a humble brown hauler I won’t wrap, won’t race, and won’t have to fill with premium gasoline.
I bought something with a bed because my wife and I borrow our church’s trucks and vans at least monthly to move bulky items. I purchased a pickup because I’ve longed for years to burrow under blankets in a truck bed under the stars. I look forward to sharing carbonated beverages on a tailgate backed up to a campfire. I want to park something with knobby tires in a creek and sleep all night where the moon is my dome light.
I drove my Tacoma for the first time today, and I love it. It’s a different affection than the one I have for my British hatchback, which is different from my attachment to my German motorcycle. I’m the kind of guy who enjoys all of them—who feels a different part of himself through each of them.
Over the last several years, I’ve been in the process of redefining what “family” means to me, what I value in friendships, and even what I want my legacy to be. I’ve been discovering that the tribes that used to help me describe who I am no longer prescribe who I’m becoming. I’ve been learning that I fit into fewer and fewer boxes—that less of my identity can be transcribed with shorthand.
I’m a “truck guy,” and I’m not a “truck guy.” I desire to turn heads in a technicolor race car and also to enjoy the anonymity of an earth-tone 4×4. I want the exhilaration of my go-kart’s acceleration and the comfort of my pickup’s adaptive cruise control. I luxuriate in both the unfiltered wind around my motorcycle and the heated steering wheel of the fourth-largest purchase of my life.
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