Whenever I speak to someone for the first time since I’ve moved out to the boonies, they ask me about the commute. They’ll hear me burbling on and on, happily, about life out here and how I’m loving it, but then they’ll get a kind of sly look on their faces and say, “Yeah, but that commute has to be murder, right?”
At my current job, when I lived in the city, my commute was a 25-40 minute walk, depending on how quickly I felt like walking – it was about 2 miles, giving me a nice guaranteed 4 mile workout. I walked it in the summer, I walked it in the winter, though I stopped walking it in the morning when Linnea started driving to work every day. I liked it, but it was also really hard for me to think about much of anything during it because I had to pay attention to what I was doing – people drive horribly down Western and at least once or twice a week I would almost get hit by someone who thought of stop signs or red lights as a suggestion rather than a law.
The job I had prior to that required me to take the Blue Line to the Loop, a 20-30 minute ride. I will be blunt and say that I hate, Hate, HATE the Blue Line. It is packed, it is LOUD, it is basically a rolling panic attack. I would routinely be crushed and pressed in on all sides by other similarly miserable passengers. By the time I got off the train I was in a surly mood, feeling overwhelmed, and generally not fit for human interaction. Couple that with a 5 minute walk to the office from the train station among a large crowd and it was hell. I wound up hating my job because my attitude when I got to work was crap and it would set the tone for the day.
Prior to that I had a commute that was a 4 block walk to the office. It was easy – I liked that, I could just roll out of bed and be at the office in no time at all if I needed to sleep late. Winter or Summer, a good commute, though it was a bit too short for me to get from “not at work” to “at work” mode, and also the reverse – I needed time to decompress by the time I got home.
My commute now is we drive to the Metra station (20 minutes, no traffic at all), the train takes about an hour and a quarter, and then I catch a shuttle that is waiting there that takes me directly to my office. In the evenings I walk a little over 2 miles back to the Metra station, ride for about an hour and a half, and then we drive back home, again, no traffic. It is the longest commute I’ve had in years and yet it’s also the best one.
The drive to and from the station is enjoyable – if Linnea is in a mood to talk, we talk, which is a great outlet for my normal morning energy. If she isn’t, I just look out the window at the lovely scenery, think my random thoughts, and it’s a good drive either way. The train ride is excellent – we ALWAYS get a seat, I don’t have to pay ANY attention to the world around me, and I usually make the time fly by pulling out my laptop and writing code for one of my side projects. By the time I get to work, my brain is ready to work on software and I’m in a happy mood. When it’s time to go home, the commute is pretty much the same – the walk to the train gives me some exercise and a chance to get out of work mode, the train ride lets me zone out and work on side projects, and the ride home is great because we can chat about our days or watch the scenery – and it’s an easy drive without any traffic.
I don’t tell my friends this though; I just shrug and say, “It’s a hike.”