Run out of time.....

"Well Tim I have good news and bad news....."

Earlier this year I wrote about a problem I'd discovered with my knee when I went for a run. Well it's taken me 5 months, but yesterday I finally got a diagnosis on my injury, or more aptly perhaps... 'my condition'.

When I walked into Sandy Hospital yesterday I had already resigned myself to needing an operation of some sort, a torn ligament probably being the problem. I figured wait for 6 to 8 months, get the op, then rehabilitate for another 6 to 10 maybe. Yes, a pretty long turn around but afterwards everything would be back to normal and I'd be running again at 100%

Well yesterday the Doc delievered his verdict and it wasn't quite as planned. The good news was that my MRI scan revealed no damage to the ligaments, so I don't need an op. But the bad news is my cartilage behind my knee cap is wearing out (due most likely to all the street side running I did in London) and my Doc said no surgery would help it. Instead he said it's a matter of 'management', even going to the point of saying maybe I should stop running......

Over the past 6 years running has become embedded in my lifestyle, and in the past 3 years it is the only constant I have known. Even when I backpacked around Europe I took my running gear, seeing the old people's faces as I ran through streets of Salamanca on a 40degree day is still a memory endeared to me. But I wonder now if it's a memory that won't be added to, as maybe I have...... run out of time.

A selfish endeavour?

About 4 hours ago I sat down at my PC to start writing again. I say again, because I haven't written anything for 2 weeks. In fact, in that time I haven't even thought about writing.
You see many different things have been happening in my life (and inside me) over the last month and in the last couple of weeks one might say I cracked and let them all flood in, washing away my daily focus on writing.

So after spending 2 hours refreshing myself, reading over the last chapter I had written two weeks back, something started becoming apparent to me. The passion was missing, there was no connection to the words, they didn't even look like I'd written them, and I don't think it is solely from being away from them for a prolonged period, as I've been away from writing before, this time there was more to it.
It's because in the last couple of weeks I have learnt some very important things about myself. One of them is that I get a real buzz from the selfless act of giving, especially when done in my own unique way. This has been taught to me by a special girl helping me open up to myself in ways I didn't think imaginable.
Thus in these last two weeks I have consciously given more (in my special way) than at any other time in my life, and I can truly say that I have never felt so complete as a human being as I do at this moment right now.

Anyway putting this into context I can kind of see why I struggled to get back into my writing earlier tonight. I think it's because of what it represents to me.
Firstly my story is about me, pretty self indulgent hey! But it's also about me at a time in my life when I was a selfish person. I was living in London and I gave little time to others, I would only give my time when I could see a personal benefit in it, so earlier when I read over my work I felt less connection to that person and his tale.
Secondly and maybe this ones more prevalent than the first. I see the act of writing as a selfish one in itself. Closing the door to your room, not seeking any interaction with the outside world (maybe the reason why I usually write better at night?) .
Now yes, I believe that the outcome isn't selfish, creating something unique (in my case a story) that others can get pleasure out of, but I'm still yet to visualise this outcome so that argument isn't holding sway yet in my mind.

Now to the little leprechaun inside my head who has been pushing me to isolate myself and get this draft finished this new 'honest' view of about my writing comes as a bitter blow. But to me as a bigger person and to me as the person that wants to discover himself, this isn't a bad this at all.

I will get this draft complete, and I'll re-draft it to, maybe even enough times to make the story one worth publishing, but it will no longer be my sole priority. I'm also happier now that I've realised where the true value in it lies, and it's not in it's completion. It's in the journey itself, and what it is teaching me, about myself.

Tim B.