Comments (10)

By kilax, January 8, 2008 5:54 am

It seems like Steven and I get a lot of inquires about our commutes from our family and friends who don’t live in the Chicago suburbs.

With him, the question is “how many miles do you drive to work each day?” and “how long does that take you?” and “why do you live so far away from your office?”

With me, it’s “how long does the train ride take?” and “why do you live so far away from your office?”

We find ourselves answering these questions, but slipping our common justifiers in with our answers. Mine are “At least 100 other people get on the train stop with me in the morning to go all the way to the city!” (i.e. I am not the only crazy one), and “it would take me three hours to drive to the city!” and “I think I am only going to commute like this while I am young!”

His justifiers (which I usually provide to him) are, “when I bought my house I worked at an office that wasn’t so far away,” and “we could buy a house closer to the city, but it would be 1/10th of the size of ours now, and be in poor quality.”

I think it is funny that I feel like I have to justify commuting on the train to Chicago. When people ask me about it they are just curious, not mean or spiteful, but when I am talking about it, I realize how ridiculous it sounds, so I try to rationalize it.

The truth is, A LOT of people commute from the suburbs to Chicago. We live in the suburbs so we can have yards, and garages, and decent houses. But just because a lot of people do it, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck, and I don’t get to work each day thinking, “why the hell do I live so far away?” Because I do.