By Dalton Hicks
The concept is rather simple. Crawl out of bed, make the drive, get the work done, drive back, rinse and repeat. It’s the same song and dance for the masses that feed the big machine of capitalism. It’s no different for myself, albeit my commute these days is a long one, and for good reason.
Starting at 0500, lunch is packed and Thorogoods are laced, all done silently so as to not wake the bride one room over. Saddling my Japanese steed called Tacoma, I point north and head into Appalachia. Some three hours later, I’ll have made it to mountainous Carolina for my normal vocation. When the working day is done, I’ll do an about face and head back for Georgia, returning home in the same darkness that I started my day in.
I’ve got a place to stay in the mountains. I don’t have to drive back every day, and it surely makes for a long week. But my spouse one room over is with child, due any day now, and that’s reason enough to make the long commute.
In the months leading up to the due date, enough miles will have been traversed to circumnavigate the pale blue dot. 1,400 mile weeks are fueled with Olympic levels of caffeine, surely adding to that anxious feeling in the gut. There’s only enough time at the end of the day to share a meal with my wife, shower, and hit the sack. All of this to make sure that I’m there.
They say it doesn’t happen like the movies. “When the time comes, you’ll have plenty of time to get back.” But what if I don’t? Would I be able to rationalize missing the birth of my daughter for a few hours sleep and some extra gas money? It’s a resounding ‘no’, and that brings us back to the road.
The long commute provides ample opportunity to spend quality time with one’s self. Much of that time is in silence, contemplating the life change approaching. It might be the last bit of silence for a long while, and I’m okay with that.
I’ve surely got time to think about delayed plans. Catching a bonefish on the fly will have to wait. And don’t even think about Kilimanjaro and chasing kudu in the green hills – that’ll probably be 10 years. But the reasons behind it all, the bride at home and the little daughter waiting in utero, make it easy to forget.
And then the payoff.
It will happen on the day it was supposed to, on a Friday, three hours before you were to make the long commute yet again. You’ll load the car, get her to the hospital, and settle in for 7 hours before the dramatic entrance. The lack of crying is startling, and the flood of nurses working on the little girl will be the scariest moment of your life. But then she starts to breathe, and your wife will finally get to hold your newest reason why.
One of the nurses will call you “Dad”, and it’s strange because you’ve never been called that before.
The dust will finally settle, and the bottle of Ardbeg you brought to the hospital will taste of relief instead of peat. In that relief, you’ll look to the little daughter sleeping on the chest of your bride, and know that the long commute was worth every mile.
