A Commuter

Even in the midst of a hullabaloo  one could still hear my moan about the torture of commuting. I could have been used to it given that I'm not really a stranger with this lifestyle, but here I am struggling.

Not a single day I keep quiet and detest the agony of trekking jam-packed roads – tiny and huge – a stressful ride so to speak.

And as a person along for the ride – who doesn't drive even the cheapest car – to endure is the answer. There is nothing more encouraging word to hear than this. But no matter how seemingly tough that person is, every single patience has an end – in this congested world.

Today isn't my day if I had to stay pessimistic, but each journey one commuter takes could still become a lesson despite unpleasant wandering. It is not easy though to embrace the positive side for a mistake you haven’t done, but of a driver’s. So be it and I had to deal with it in the name of commuting.

You could get lost even in familiar routes because that’s what it takes to relearn things and remember new directions; it is commuting 101.

Because I have been gone for a long time, and so that’s a valid excuse left – when commuting was no longer a lifestyle. Although I have taken the same routes in the past, it is no longer the same in the present time – when constant change is unstoppable…that is part of commuting obviously.

Once when he was still a teenager, an author wrote an award winning essay unveiling the reality and the pressure of commuting – A Rainbow Monochrome – the best write-up I had read detailing the life of a commuter. In one word he spelled such way of life: P-R-E-S-S-U-R-E while I couldn't agree more.

If I had to spell the same existence today, it would be T-O-R-T-U-R-E. I have never been intense whining about this torment, nothing but an affliction in my daily life in Manila – where commuting is just endlessly needed.

Thanks to a friend for giving me a ride so I could visit her parents (my co-workers in the vineyard) whom I haven’t seen in ages. For a commuter like me, it was a super-duper blessing to be able to skip a routine once in a while.

And only people of the same situation can identify what I am trying to say. If not, try to commute daily and hail from the southern to the northern parts of this overcrowded place – then you can feel the pain and hassle.

For as long I am here – I'm a commuter – like any others who are also suffering.