It wasn’t so bad when I first started this job. I was still living at home with my parents and my office was only 10 miles from home. Actually, it was a nice little ride to the office. I could rock out in the car to Say Anything or clear my mind and do some much needed thinking.
I even planned most of my wedding during my commute home, catching up with vendors that I could not reach during the day.
But then I moved in with my husband. Which was great because living with your spouse is always better than not living with your spouse. Until I realized I was now 16 miles from work. And 16 miles from work actually meant that I had a 45 to 60 minute commute to work.
This meant that I was spending as much as 10 hours of my life each week getting to and from work.
Now that we’ve moved to Bristol, I’m twenty miles from work. And now I spend more like 12 hours a week in the car commuting.
Even writing about the commute makes my stress level go up. It gives me an overwhelming urge to only use run-on sentences, minimal punctuation but with additional exclamation points and a need to scream my head off and give someone the bird.
Maybe driving isn’t as relaxing as it used to be.
Commuting was kind of fun when I first started. In a weird way, it made me feel more like an adult. Sort of like it did when I paid the first health insurance bill. Except now, I’m very grateful for health insurance whereas I’m not so sure I’m grateful for my commute.
When I get home from work at night, I like to walk around the Boro and fantasize about a life without a commute to work. At first that looked like me being a stay at home wife while Brian went out and obtained lots of Benjamin’s for us but then after a while, I started to imagine him in a suit and tie with briefcase in hand and that sort of destroyed everything I love about my husband. Now I fantasize about waking up and either walking or biking to work. I imagine going out my back door, getting my bike and heading down Spring Street to a job that does not have business casual as a description in its dress code.
I have small town dreams these days.
Cassandra Jowett said...
1Commuting is really tough and I think it can take more out of a person than their actual day sometimes. My dad commutes about 100km to work in Toronto and back each day.
In rush-hour traffic that can sometimes take an hour and a half if everything is still moving, or two or three hours if there’s an accident on the highway. He’s been doing the commute for a long time, more than 10 years.
And every day when he comes home he just plops down and takes a few minutes for himself because he’s just buzzing with frustration.
I don’t envy him at all, nor you. Good luck finding something close by.
04/17/09 8:25 AM | Comment Link
Katie said...
2This is why I’m moving in a week. Even though I’m only 4 miles from my job, it’s a half hour drive either way every day (ridiculous!), and by moving 2 miles closer, I cut 20 minutes off the drive time. I’m so excited about the shorter commute. I can’t believe how much extra time it’s going to give me!
04/20/09 1:55 AM | Comment Link