Look at me, I’m a train on a track
I’m a train, I’m a train, I’m a chucka train, yeah
Look at me, got a load on my back
I’m a train, I’m a train, I’m a chucka train, yeah

Look at me, I’m going somewhere
I’m a train, I’m a train, I’m a chucka train, yeah
Look at me, I’m going somewhere
I’m a train, I’m a train, I’m a chucka train, yeah

Been a hard day, yes, it has been a hard day
Yes, it has been a hard day, yes, it has
I’m a train, I’m a chucka train, I’m a chucka train
I’m a train, I’m a chucka train, chucka train, yeah

I sang this song in an acapella group. It was originally done by Albert Hammond, but we sang the King Singers version. It was kind of silly and a little repetitive for my tastes, but the beat and the harmonies were infectious. I find myself still humming it on occasion without any provocation.

I just don’t think I ever understood it before, not really anyway.

There is a single track, a single load, a single day or life and all of it just seems to be heading in this forward direction. We are moving faster than we can even fathom. We are harmonizing with the tones of the rails. We are choosing to have the hard days because we choose to move at all. So long as there is friction between our wheels and the steel beneath us.

And sometimes th simple mantra presented by this song is enough to let me know that we are all trains. It is enough to show me just how discordant everything can be from time to time, and how it always resolves in the last stanza. Not that there wasn’t hardship along the way, but the vocal chords come to rest and there is just the gentle hum of the train.

So I’m a train, I’m a train, I’m a chukka chukka train.

I have set so much up for my family, my business, my carreer and everything else that it hardly seems that there is anything that I can do to change direction. I make the gentle nudge, but that is just shifting focus really, nothing is really changing.

I guess I am trying to not derail us, and I’ve been pretty successful so far. I haven’t caused any major bankruptcies or caused any fatalities, which is pretty nice. I haven’t gotten too lost or been made obsolete by some brand new model. I feel like what I haul is worth hauling, otherwise I wouldn’t do it.

But I sometimes want to stop being a train. Sometimes I would like to be able to be a car or an airplane with fewer limitations on direction and maintinence. Sometimes I want to unload and see what it is like in one of the many stops I have made along the way. But I blow the whistle and I move forward like all of the other trains.

The biggest thing about trains is that there are no shortcuts. You have to run the full route. You have to consume all of the fuel.

So maybe this is all a bit vague, but the refrain in my head is louder than ever. These words are all that makes sense to me right now. I do not mourn this fact, but rather understand that it will be my lot so long as I want the ability to carry all of the things that love and need with me everywhere I go. No other form of transportation can be a freight conveyance, comfortable passenger transport, and long distance transit system. For that, I love being a train.