There’s a great line delivered by Harry (Billy Crystal) to Sally (Meg Ryan) during his declaration of love at the end of When Harry Met Sally. I might be paraphrasing:
When you realize that you want to spend the rest of your life with someone, you want the rest of your life to start right now.
Great, great line. It sums up how I felt about my now-wife, then-partner who introduced me to that movie. It also sums up how I feel about most things, actually. I’m a rather impatient person.
I’ve been thinking and writing about loving the work a lot recently. Because I’ve realized that there’s a big difference between wanting to do something and wanting to have done something.
This thought crystalized for me somewhere between miles 60 and 84 of the century I rode the weekend before last. It hasn’t been long enough for the experience to become type two fun yet, mostly because my joints–especially my knees–still ache. Looking back on it today while I was out for a walk, I realized that I wanted to have ridden a century more than I wanted to ride a century.
When I stopped at the support station at mile 60, it threw off my cadence, so I didn’t take the time to rest and refuel like I should have. That turned the miles between that stop and the one at mile 84 into a slog. What made it even more grueling is that, by that point, there was nothing I could do to make myself go faster. My body was doing as much as it could of what I was asking of it. After that last support stop, I started taking short breaks every couple miles. That turned into a quick break every mile. Then, at the top of every big hill. Then, at the bottom and then the top of every hill. I just wanted to be done.
I sometimes feel that way about writing.
But just because you love something doesn’t mean you’re going to love it every day. For me, that means that I don’t love every mile I ride. I also don’t love every word I write. But I’m learning to be okay with that.
