OK, I miss commuting: there, I said it

What would I have said if someone told me in late 2019, or early in 2020, that there would soon come a time when I would not step foot on a train for well over one year?

What would I have thought in March 2020, when we knew the pandemic was upon us, if you’d told me that I’d be working from home not for the 12 weeks originally discussed by the Government, but for closer to 60 weeks?

How would I have responded if I’d known that some of the frames of reference I’d known for so long would disappear overnight?

When the daily commute is not just something you do, but almost becomes something you are, how does its sudden absence reset the way you view your life?

That may sound melodramatic. Who defines themself by a daily train ride?

As weird as it sounds, I think I did, a bit. Partly consciously, partly sub-consciously. I bet I am not the only one. And … I think I miss it. There: I said it.

There are millions of us who’ve spent vast chunks of their adult life heading out the door every morning come rain or shine and returning in the evening, their working day done. I’ve commuted in and out of London to work at three different companies across 20+ years. It’s been at least as much a part of my career as the organisations I have worked for.

Into London, out of London. Into London, out of London. Day in, day out, year in, year out. It’s habit-forming, but it goes deeper than that. To an extent, weirdly, it becomes who you are.

To be honest, I would define myself by activities I’ve done a lot less than commuting, over the years. I would consider myself a runner, and whilst I wish I could tell you that I’d gone out for a run on more days than I’ve commuted over the last two decades, that would sadly be a lie.

And anyway, how can the commute not become part of who you are, when you have to explain it every time you meet somewhere new?

“Where do you live?”

“Hertfordshire.”

“Oh I love St Albans!”

“Nowhere near St Albans, really ...”

(It’s a curious thing that many Londoners assume there is only one town or city in Hertfordshire ...)

“I live about halfway between London and Cambridge. On the border of Essex and Hertfordshire.”

“Oh, that sounds a long way out. How long is your commute?”

You see? It’s only ever one question away. People who live and work in London are simultaneously fascinated and appalled by the idea of commuting. They mull it over for a second or two, usually, as if you have just told them you come in every day from Mordor. Sometimes they avert their gaze from you and stare into the middle distance, as if were possible to see the Hertfordshire farmlands from their desk in central London, if they squint hard enough.

They cannot imagine doing it every day. We know they can’t, because on the rare occasions they do get on a packed commuter train out of the city (out to Stansted Airport, for example) they loudly tell each other they couldn’t do this every day, in full earshot of those us deemed to be both stupid enough to do it every day and, apparently, deaf to their banal observations about our lives.

And so two tribes are formed. Those who “live in” and those who “live out.”

Those of us who live out are grouped together in many conversations around the office desks. The literal outsiders. Even though we are spread across hundreds of miles, from the northern home counties to Brighton and the south coast, and from East Anglia to England’s westernmost cities, we are defined, as one, by where we do not live, rather than where we do live.

In the offices across England’s capital city, you are one, or you are the other. The dividing line might be the M25, or it might not be. Nobody really knows, but you have to know which tribe is yours. There are only two. Choose.

Sometimes - less often than you’d imagine - people cross the divide. Almost always to move out. Seldomly to move in. It’s always a major moment for everyone in any office, when it is announced. “You are moving where?! Hertfordshire? Oh I love St Albans!”

The person moving is immediately gathered up by those of us who “live out.” It doesn’t matter if we live nowhere near Hertfordshire, let alone St-blooming-Albans. Everyone who is from “out” will readily, enthusiastically pass on tips about commuting. We excitedly recount stories of summer evenings in our gardens, or at a cosy, welcoming village pub. We make up stuff about duck ponds even if there are no duck ponds where we live.

We do this as a sort of weird defence measure. We know what they think, you see. They wonder why we give up hours of our lives every day, and pay fortunes for the privilege, just to commute out of London every evening to a place where the coffee is from chain stores, rather than achingly-cool independent shops.

It becomes a reflex to gather someone into our tribe when someone admits to merely thinking about it. “You’re thinking of moving out? Where to? Kent/Sussex/Hampshire/Buckinghamshire/Hertfordshire/Suffolk/Northamptonshire/Oxfordshire? Oh you should! Let me tell you about the duck pond!”

We are the tribe of dark, windy mornings and 5am trains. Yes, we spend a fortune with underwhelming train companies, yes we drink bad coffee from the station cafe, and yes we listen to more podcasts and read more books than you do. We know timetables off the top of our heads, we know where the doors will stop on the platform, and we are on nodding terms with people we otherwise have nothing in common with, other than one regular mode of transport.

Until we’re not.

In a world where very few of us have been commuters - save for heroic key workers who kept the country going during the pandemic - some of us lost a bit more and also gained a bit more. We gained time, but we lost time. Our commute at 6pm suddenly turned into us closing a laptop and walking to the fridge, just like everyone else. Books were unread, podcasts never downloaded. The thing that defined us no longer set us apart. Nobody lived in, nobody lived out. We all lived on Zoom.

None of this really matters of course. It is the ultimate work-related triviality. People have lost jobs, kept jobs, gained jobs. It has been, for almost everyone, the toughest year in living memory. Nobody is suggesting that it matters that anyone’s daily routine changed a bit, in this context.

And yet, as the Spring sunshine comes out, and the vaccination programme roars on, our thoughts turn from the new normal, back to a partially remembered, old normal. When might we return to the office? And straight after that, like one train pulling up behind another train in a suburban station, is the thought of being a commuter once more.

One day, soon, we’ll step on a train again, and head back into the heart of the city. Later that day, we’ll get on another train and go back again. The habit will reform. We’ll have more time, and simultaneously less time. We will briefly love that it’s back, and almost immediately resent that it’s back (as soon as that first train is cancelled for no reason).

We’ll see you in the office, of course, and for some of us, we’ll be meeting new people for the first time. They’ll ask us where we live. We’ll know what question is coming, and we’ll be ready for it. “You live where?” Gosh, that’s far. How long is your commute?” And we’ll answer, it’s longer now than it has been for the last year, when we just commuted to the kitchen and back, and you know what, if that means the world is getting back to normal, that’s fine by us.

And yes, it’s glorious out there. Especially by the duck pond.