And:
> rather than be beholden to some landlord whose interests are not aligned with my own
It sounds like you're now beholden to a situation that's misaligned with your interests. You've traded one kind of serfdom for another.
I live in Austin, and I'm tired of hearing how traffic bad is from people who decided to buy a 3,500 sq foot home 40 miles outside of town and complain about "traffic" driving in.
we have a pretty messed up view of "owning" something without realizing that "owning" doesn't mean much other than "being owned by..." that big commute owns YOU
I'm not trying to say how you should or shouldn't feel. I did lots of commuting over the years and I too said the same things you said...
but now that I'm 42, now that my kids are older and now that life seems to be going by faster and faster, I super regret spending years of my life behind the wheel rather than doing what I really wanted to do.
That bigger house wasn't worth it, the bigger tv wasn't worth it, the bigger commute wasn't worth it.
I had no time for my wife, my friends, my kids, my hobbies. I didn't go kayaking, biking or running as much as I wish...
I thought my commute time was my time, but it was "alone time" but not necessarily objectively "me" time - i was still upset at the traffic, delays, weather, people everywhere and no one talking, everyone just mindlessly going places while being jerks and i had to use books/music to escape...
only to go home to pay a big mortgage, stay up late to have that hour of time, get up early to try and have more time. Before long i was spending all my mental energy trying to justify it all and it became overwhelming.
Today, I live 6 miles from work, a 15 minute drive in worst of traffic. I'm home, i'm not mad, i can still listen to music/audio books but more importantly i'm there - i don't mind driving home to pickup kids to take them to scouts or off to music - because i didn't just spend 1.2 hours commuting. my rage is less, i'm there more, i'm more present and i have time for hobbies/friends/family and ME
The only other me-time I have is getting up at 05:30 to go for a run, which is magnitudes less pleasant than sitting on a bus.
So, as you say, everyone's opinion of commuting time differs. For me it is a highlight of the day.
Now my morning run is me time - I run where I want to run, I wave to people, I smile, I pet the random dog that runs up to me, I smell the fresh air, I sense the warmth of summer, the coolness of fall and the crispness of winter. I feel the sun on my back, the wind on my face. I can listen to music, I can listen to an audiobook - my mind is clear - think the most and remember the most when i'm out on my jog.
When I commuted to work, it was so mindless sometimes I forgot how I even got from point a to b. On the bus or the train or sitting in my car, I wasn't there with nature, I wasn't there in mind/body/spirit. I was kept busy by stuff I didn't really pay attention to because it was all a distraction from the commute that I lied to myself was what mattered as me time.
at 5:30 in the morning - there is a good chance you will see the stars set and the sunrise - the birds chirp. You run - you start feeling better, you feel healthier, you feel more alive. You get back home and that coffee tastes better, that shower feels better. YOur muscles ache less and less as you do it.
That commute - unless you happen to be lucky enough to be bush pilot flying the mountains of Alaska to get to work or a park ranger driving thorugh a national park to get to work usually doesn't offer what we take foregranted but forget what life should be about.
When I lived in PA i had to commute 1.5 hours each way and i too swore to myself how good that "me time" was...
figure 253 working days a year, in one year I spend 759 hours just getting back and forth to work - not including all the extra time, bad days, slow days or working late, or having to come in early or use my free time to study, answer alerts/pages or stay ahead of tech/services/requirements that is a lot of time. Really put into perspective when you realize 750 hours is essentially 19 weeks of man hours of worka year. I couldn't name a book, or learn anything new or remember a damn thing that happened during those commuting days - but i could remember how bad traffic was, what time every school got out and how often i ran across the same asshole on the way to work or home and what frequency life sucked because of holidays/events/activities going on.
i guess my point is, if you can enjoy it, by all means enjoy it, but don't do what i did and fool yourself into enjoying it without realizing you weren't getting out of it what you perceived you were.
Its kind of a shame we're good at convincing ourselves something like a jog, where we're alone in nature with mind, body and spirit is "bad" but in the hustle and bustle of senseless rush to get to work or get back home - we see that as a me time. (not saying this is how you feel, but how i perceive the quirks of our society)
Also, lets not forget, if you had a 10 minute commute to work your run may be at 7:30 instead of 5:30 or it could be at 5:30 pm instead of 5:30 a.m which may be more enjoyable for you. Or you could go fishing before/after work or just spend an hour at starbucks enjoying a coffee rather than sitting in traffic by choice.
The first year i stopped commuting i started going fishing at a small pond on my way to work. I'd just keep a collapsable rod in my car and some lures. I got good at catching large mouth bass and crappy and i got to see the bats, birds, fish, deer and that 45 minutes of fishing before work was the best healing for my spirit i could ever ask for. Thats mother fucking ME time right there!
If you want to talk about "convincing ourselves", I look at some of my co-workers who live in tiny apartments that don't even have fully functioning kitchens, for the sake of being a few blocks from work. They talk about how great it is to have a short commute and seem oblivious to the fact that they've chosen lives slightly better than those of Chinese factory workers, only the company doesn't pay for the exorbitant rent on the tiny pods they're living in or all the meals they have to order from delivery services because they only have a mini-fridge and a microwave.