View from the North 40: Driving a narrow, sleepy horizon

Psychologists love, love, love their theories, and the one I find most refreshing is called the horizon of possibilities.

This says that given all the factors in our lives from boring facts like age, physical attributes, finances, location and internal drive, we have a certain number of things we can do or be. It’s a vast number, but it’s not infinite.

For example, I am 50, not in particularly good shape, don’t feel much like putting in the effort to change that shape and I’m a touch claustrophobic, so my odds of being an astronaut are less than nil.

Therefore, future astronaut is not on my horizon of possibilities or, in common lingo, it’s not in my wheelhouse.

I learned about the horizon of possibilities in the one and only master’s level college class I took. Actually getting my master’s is on my horizon of possibilities, not my horizon of probabilities, you understand, but it’s somewhere in the possibilities range.

The thing I like about this theory is that pretty early on in my life I realized that every time adults told me I could be anything I wanted to be, they were spouting a load of hogwash.

I was never going to be a ballerina. I was born with the stout muscles and titanium-level bone density of my father’s people.

These were the same attributes that kept me from a budding career as an Olympic swimmer — because when you are dense, if you aren’t swimming, you’re drowning. Floating is not in my wheelhouse.

Sadly, those paternal genes let me down again when I failed to grow to a height of 6-foot tall. I didn’t even make 5-10.

No, basketball player was not in my wheelhouse. I just really wanted to be tall.

I also didn’t want to be a ballerina or an Olympic swimmer – though not being constantly drug to the watery depths by my own heavy, dense body would’ve been nice for those days at the lake – but I digress.

Ironically, I didn’t want to be a ballerina or an Olympic swimmer either, but in response to ”you can be anything you dream to be,” I’d say, “What if I dream of being a ballerina or an Olympic swimmer?” … Or a boy, which I didn’t, or a Brazilian, which I wasn’t, or a math genius, ditto, or magic, which I really, really, really, very much wanted to be.

My comeback usually got blank looks, or sometimes exasperated looks, and sometimes the adult “voice reason,” which said something like: “Now, Pam, you have to be realistic.”

Duh! That was MY point.

The stupid adult was the one saying I could be anything.

So there I was in my one and only master’s class learning about psychology by watching and studying popular movies — yes, that’s a real class at U of M — and finally getting my vindication.

I bring this up not because I want to re-invent myself or shake up my horizon, but because I am preparing to go one a four-hour trip. That’s not far, I grant you, but I will be driving. Alone.

The issue is that I am a perfectly good driver, but professional, long-haul truck is not a career field open to me. I get sleepy when I’m in a vehicle.

I can’t help it.

I used to go driving in the mountains with my dad, and 15 minutes into the ride, as my eyes were rolling into the back of my head — which was doing a fair amount of bobbing on its own — I’d say, “Wake me if you see any wildlife—” and then be checked out for an hour.

It must be some form of specialized narcolepsy. Maybe we should call it drivolepsy, Which is dumb but so much better than “big baby can’t stay awake in a moving vehicle”-olepsy.

Anyway, my point is, if you see a tan pickup pulled over to the side of the road and the driver has her head lolled over and her eyes slammed shut in a deep sleep — do not honk your horn. I need the rest so I can make the next 35-mile stretch of road before it’s nap time again.

(It's a long trip to the horizon with drivolepsy at [email protected].)