My suburban internship without a car, and what I've learned so far ---
When I got off the phone with the campus security officer on June 26th, I definitely wanted to cry a little bit.
I had taken a shuttle from my office to the local metro station as normal, but the campus shuttle I barely missed would not be back for another hour. (It was also supposed to have come back in 30 minutes but didn’t – don’t worry about that though). I stood there in the decently hot summer sun, pacing around the bus stop area in my black flats, and waited.
There was a pretty cool bug, and the smell of marijuana in the air. I tried to distract myself from the fact that despite all of my efforts, I was wasting my time in such a ridiculous way. But that’s life, I guess.
—
When I got the text that my ride to the office was not actually my ride back on June 27th, I definitely felt pretty stressed out.
I was fed up enough with the waiting around from the day before that I decided to reach out to another intern living in my building and ask him for a carpool. Yeah, I’ve never been good with asking for favors, but I thought that my troubles would be finally over for a moment.
Unfortunately, apparently not; after I asked, their group was going to stay late. (He may have sent me off in the morning with “see you later!”).
I thought a lot about if and where I messed up. Maybe I should’ve explicitly asked him in the morning to drive me back too. But all was well, he told me about someone else I knew who was probably driving back when I was leaving. I sent them a message and waited while sitting at my desk with overwhelming anxiousness. I eyed the clock in the corner of my monitor: 4:50, 4:51, …
—
The car I drive at home is about as old as I am: a cerulean blue 2004 Toyota Camry. It’s not mine, though, and I had been getting through college thus far without a vehicle, like many of my friends were. So I thought it wouldn’t be too much of a deal to keep up my car-less ways at my exciting summer internship coming up. I would live in an apartment by myself for the first time, cook, and hopefully start to feel like an adult too – all the exciting things.
Long story short, and for a multitude of reasons, I found myself completely dependent on public transportation and the graciousness of others. And so, besides a brand-new work environment, I was experiencing a brand-new level of dependent independence. It’s definitely been tiring.
One weekend, I went grocery shopping at the closest store nearby. It took a 10-minute shuttle and a 10-minute walk along a busy road. It’s quite hard to realize how incredibly car-centric the infrastructure is in suburbia, until you’re out walking on a pleasant day turned unpleasant. Sweating from a lack of tree canopy, on edge as you listen to cars whizz by just feet away, and anxious as you carefully plan your street crossings — either to not get run over, or because the crossings just don’t exist. And there’s basically no one else around: eerie silence, a bright blue sky, and an uncomfortable feeling I can’t put a finger on.
Wouldn’t it be nice if these kinds of walks were safe and enjoyable? I’m pretty glad to be aware of this issue now, but I digress.
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So just to lay it out, my commute this summer consists of taking two independent shuttles: one from my university housing to the local metro station, and the other from there to my office. Their schedules are tight and risky, with even the smallest delay in one leading to waiting half an hour for the other. I’m so thankful for my mostly remote assignment, but it’s been interesting to learn my fate each day I trek to the promised land. Especially when it fails.
Despite all this, and when it felt the most difficult to just exist, there’s just not a way I can give up — so I didn’t.
Fast forward, and I’ve had the pleasure of missing several more shuttles for reasons completely beyond my control. I’ve been feeling alright about it though. A few other interns have coincidentally decided to test out this nifty semi-public transportation solution with me, and I could have laughed when we got unlucky with the morning shuttle twice in a row. A bit of a “yeah, this is my life” moment, but I was glad for the company.
The best part, though? The people I’ve been able to connect with, who I’d never know otherwise.
Shoutout to Leslie, the happily retired shuttle driver who gave me words of encouragement my very first day, and told me about her adventures in cheerleading way back when “it was the Baltimore Colts, not Ravens!”. And to Nicole, an energetic co-passenger who joked about her not-so-great cooking abilities and endless stock broker licenses at 8 in the morning.
And I guess to the student on the shuttle one time, who told me I looked too old to be a student… Growing up is really a strange thing.