🫢4 hours commuting every single day... today I can finally breathe
4 hours every single day. Two hours there and two hours back. 4 hours of my life thrown away every day just travelling in the freezing cold and rain. If you've ever had to get up at 4:15 in the morning, pitch black outside, rain pouring, and you have to drag yourself out of bed to head to work - you know exactly how grim that feels. You just want to cry from sheer exhaustion, but you get up anyway because you've got no choice. My name is Laura Martin, I'm 23. Let me be straight with you: I honestly couldn't care less whether you try anything after reading this or not. I'm not advertising anything and I'm not trying to convince anyone. I just wanted to share an unbelievable turn of events that changed my life. What you do next - that's entirely up to you. And yes, that is me in the car. The photo was taken about a year ago when I still dyed my hair blonde. My dad took it through the window right after we picked up the car, and I just put my head on the steering wheel and completely broke down in tears of relief. How did I end up in that situation? Last year I failed a university paper after a stupid disagreement with a tutor. I couldn't re-enrol until the following academic year. So I was left with a whole gap year where I had to pay my own rent, groceries, and bills. Who hires a 23-year-old with no degree and no experience? In the city, I got turned down everywhere. The only place that took me on straight away was a big petrol station out on the motorway bypass outside town. The wages were decent, but getting out there was an absolute nightmare. No direct buses at all. My daily commute was: alarm at 4:15 AM, catch the 5:00 AM bus to the outer suburbs. From there, I'd unfold an old bike and pedal 8 kilometres along the shoulder of a dark highway. Rain, freezing wind, trucks thundering past at 100 km/h covering me in mud and spray. Then 12 hours on my feet at the till, and in the evening - the same 8 km in the dark back to the bus stop. My hands were so numb I c
