My partner, AJ and I, live in Virginia halfway between Washington, DC and Richmond,VA. Our commute to work takes no less than 3 hours a day. When we first moved here I joined a vanpool and commuted that way for a few years, while AJ drove herself to work. That worked for awhile, until the vanpool disbanded. I tried alternate forms of transportation, but I was getting very frustrated with the amount of time spent traveling daily, mostly because it seemed like between work and the commute we never got to see one another. When the price of gas topped $3 per gallon we decided to buy a more fuel efficient vehicle and ride together, at least part of the way. So we decided to ride together the first 25 miles, which takes between 30 and 45 minutes, and then split into different directions from there. I take the bus and head north, about an additional hour, and she continues west to her office, which takes her about 30 minutes. We have been commuting like this for about 3 years now.
It hasn't always been ideal. There was a time when there wasn't a place where I could wait indoors for her to pick me up in the evening, but soon a coffee shop opened near the bus stop where I get dropped at night, so at least I had somewhere to wait for her if she had to work overtime. And our morning start hours have not always coincided either, so in the beginning she would drop me off at the bus stop and then drive to her job, where she would have to wait about an hour before she could get into her office. Lately, our hours have been coinciding pretty well, but it is always subject to the whim of our employers.
In the evening, unless she has to work overtime, she is waiting for me. I try to sit on the passenger side of the bus, so that I can see if our car is backed into the usual space in the coffee shop's parking lot, which is at the top of the hill from where my bus drops me off. Sometimes, when I get off the bus, she gets out of the car, opens the back hatchback, and watches me as I walk up the steep grassy slope to meet her. She smiles at me while I hike up the hill. In the summer, she is usually wearing shorts. She generally walks 8-10 miles a day outdoors, so she has gets quite a tan. She is such a cutie. Once in awhile, after I meet her at the top, I will give her a kiss. She always looks at me a little surprised when I do that, but she never loses her smile. I know the surprise is because we are kissing in the middle of a public parking lot in the very Republican red state of Virginia. For this reason, we are both always a little bit cautious.
After she says "Hi Sweetie", she will ask if I want coffee or a treat from the coffee shop. Sometimes she will have already bought a pastry for our trip home. She asks about my day, and I ask about hers. We hold hands on the ride home, and decide whether we are going to go to the gym or skip it and go the next night. We discuss dinner, the frustrations of our jobs, the books we are reading, our friends who have called during the day and what they are up to, our cats and the traffic. We discuss the future and our plans for vacation, retirement someday, and the weekend. We talk about everything during those rides to and from the bus stop and probably talk more than we used to when we had a shorter commute. Once we get home there are many distractions, chores and demands and sometimes we get so busy we do not have the time to talk much again until bedtime.
Our commute home has evolved, in an unexpected way, into a something like a date, especially in the evening. It has allowed us to spend time alone with each other and just talk. Sometimes, when there is an accident on I95 and the traffic seems worse than usual, we discuss whether we should consider selling the house and moving closer to our jobs. We have decided the current economic situation and the housing market has pretty much nixed that idea for the immediate future. Besides, we wonder, when would we find the time to date?
