the commute

While I was visiting Ottawa, Ontario on my road trip in October, I accomplished something I had planned to do in both 2013 and 2018 when I visited the storage unit—I drove north through the Quebec countryside to see the house where I had lived with xBF before moving to Seattle.  I was never nostalgic about the place, but had always felt a proper goodbye to the house or something had been missing.  I had been so happy to get the hell out and move west lickety-split before anyone changed their mind about offering me a job there. 

And, you see, although I had commuted on that route for almost four years, I had never driven it myself.  I didn’t have a driver’s license then.  I finally wanted to take that drive I thought I knew so well.

Most of my commutes were with a private bus service primarily getting women to their government jobs in downtown Ottawa and Gatineau. Winter mornings were dark and crazy-cold. We all huddled under our fleece blankies on the converted school bus.  I frequently sprinted from the office to catch my one-and-only bus home. The best morning on the bus was when I was startled out of my haze catching sight of a male moose standing in a bog. 

In October, I was shocked that the roads, landscape, and landmark buildings did not look simply “different” after thirteen years—it all, including the house, looked unfamiliar to me. 

I did not feel that way about the office building and shopping mall on the other end of the commute when I visited the nearby storage unit in 2013 and 2018—those places felt very familiar to me.  When I was in the mall food court, I strongly remembered hanging out there before work and on lunch break scribbling in a notebook as I plotted how to get out of debt, invest $ I didn’t have, and fix my personal life. The $ we spent on gas for xBF to go in one direction from the house and on bus fare for me to go another was, of course, ridiculous.

Looking back, it all seems so unnecessarily difficult.

I wondered why I had driven up there after all. I said a quick goodbye to the house and scurried back to the city to happily visit more with cousin E. Whatever the outstanding task was, it finally felt complete.  Huh. AS IF I needed a refresher course in subsequent rough patches when I’m not the primary driver.

References and related links:

• xBF: ex-boyfriend.
• the unit (post #103)
• just a four-province drive (post #104)
• vacation bundle (post #126)