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I live 18.84 miles from where I work. The other day, it took me 2 hours to get home—approximately 6.4 minutes per mile. Some people (not me) could run faster than that.
The cause? Armageddon-like weather—tornadoes, thunder, lightning, hail even.
“Lord,” I prayed aloud as I sat in gridlock along with a zillion other road-raged commuters trying to beat the storm to their doorsteps, “if I’m going to get sucked up by a freak twister today, please let it be from my bathtub so my last moments can be spent staring at the mildew that needs scrubbing instead of this endless sea of bright red tail lights. Amen.”
My commute is killing me.
On a good day, a one-way journey to work takes an hour—car to train to short walk to the office. On a bad day, like the other day, the same journey takes two hours. On a really, really bad day—say one that includes blizzard conditions, a suicide on the train tracks, and/or a multi-car pileup, my journey can take up to three (insert expletive of choice here) hours.
It’s enough to drive anyone insane, but I would argue that it’s 10 times worse because I’m a full-time working mom who sees her children 2 to 4 hours per day on average. Time is everything.
Wasting an extra hour in traffic means that I miss Tessa completely before she goes to bed. It means that I might arrive home in time to read a few books to Ethan and tuck him in, but all the while I am starving for dinner, need to pee, and would prefer to change out of my work clothes.
But there is no time for such frivolous things.
Why do I do it? Because we wanted to live in the suburbs with a yard and a dog and a neighborhood ice cream truck. Because we didn’t have half a million dollars to buy a 1,200-square-foot home closer to the city. Because it supports my family.
There has to be a better way.
I am lucky that I am able to work from home on Fridays—it is the only reason I have not truly gone off the deep end. Yet.
Eliminating my morning shower and the morning rush hour enables me a little extra time to play with my kids before they go to daycare. I can throw in a load of laundry. I can pick them up at the end of the day and experience the bliss of seeing their ecstatic little faces when I arrive, rather than turning my back on their heartbroken cries when I leave.
I try to use my commute productively.
I listen to books on tape or NPR so I know what’s going on in the world (there is no time for morning or nightly news on TV most days).
I talk on the phone—to my mom, my sister, friends I need to catch up with—all to keep from focusing on the car in front of me. (I know, I know, I should hang up and drive, but please understand that I need the distraction.) Now, I think about whether or not I’m going to get brain cancer from all of this cell phone use.
I plan my day, my weekend, and my list of mental to-dos. I think about work projects, strategy for my blog. I wonder if I could find software to record my thoughts so I could turn it into blog posts when I get home and save more time?
I think about how to save time all the time. I guess I have plenty of time for thinking.
Carly | The Musing Mama
carly@themusingmama.com
http://themusingmama.com
