Love the commute...

When you do something for a long time it tends to become mindless. It cant be helped, it just happens. I am talking specifically about my commute. There are some days – especially when I am tired - that I don’t remember driving to work, and yet there I am sitting in the parking lot getting ready to go into the building. I joke that my car knows the way to the office and that is how I get there. I have been doing this commute for almost 7 years and I still love it.

When I first started doing this commute, I was going to college. I was taking the back roads from my house to the college every day. This back way takes me through farm land on 2 lane roads. It isn’t uncommon to encounter a tractor or big hay truck along the way and people on these roads are generally unhurried and friendly. Since I loved going to college and was in a great mood this commute was literally a drive in the country for me.

Now that I am working, I am doing the commute through the farmlands on the back roads again. The job I do is incredibly suited to my strengths and likes. The people are friendly and nice. The company is strong and ethical. I have been here 6 months and while the honeymoon is definitely over I am still happier here than I have ever been anywhere else. I have a sense of accomplishment and productivity when I leave at night. And when I leave I get to drive home through some of the most beautiful roads in Maryland.

Because I have been doing this commute for a while I have a sense of ownership for it. I notice when the roads are getting worn, I notice when the house for sale needs its lawn cut, I notice when one of the houses along the way gets a new deck. I track the seasons by my commute as well – in spring the hay gets tall, gets cut, and gets baled, the calves and lambs show up and the corn fields get tilled. Summer brings the shoulder high corn, fall is like driving inside an intricate stained glass window, and winter brings the silvers and grays that seem bleak and never ending. I grieved for the house that lost a mature tree after a particularly fierce storm, and was relieved when someone bought and refurbished the old Victorian on the hill.

We are on this earth for such a short time that it seems silly to do something that makes you so unhappy. But at the same time I can see how the commute can seem like a necessary evil - Ya gotta work and ya gotta get there somehow. But maybe taking a back road will make a difference. It may increase your drive time by a couple of minutes but if it alleviates some road rage, or the sights make you appreciate your life a little more, isn't it worth the extra time?

Just stay off my back roads. I have my commute timed to the minute and the addition of your car to my commute will just piss me off. Just sayin...