Why I’m moving to the place I called ‘America’s worst place to live’ – The Washington Post

Life along the I-95 corridor was starting to lose its charm too. I commute in to D.C. most days. A one-way trip, involving car, train, metro and a walk takes about 90 minutes on a good day. I count myself among that woebegone 2.62 percent of workers who spend 15 hours or more each week stuck in traffic, shivering on subway platforms, and otherwise squandering a huge chunk of their waking hours on one of their most-hated activities.

For me, a 15-hour commute meant a lot of things. It meant going on blood pressure medication at the age of 34 because there’s no time to exercise. It meant getting to see the kids for maybe 30 minutes on a good night, at the end of the day when we’re all tired and ornery. It meant missed opportunities to read, write and think, because it’s hard to do justice of any of those things in the calm intervals of a commute involving four modes of transit.

And so, I decided, it was time to shake things up.

“What about moving to that nice place you visited over the summer?” my mom said to Briana and me during a visit last fall. We laughed at first. But the idea took hold — and with startling ferocity.

From: Why I’m moving to the place I called ‘America’s worst place to live’ – The Washington Post