The long and winding road

I'm a beginning runner, and every run seems long to me. But when I run a distance and double back, the return trip always seems shorter than the first half of the run. You'd think it would be the reverse -- by the second half of the run, I'm tired and have already seen the environment I just passed. Maybe the newness of the first half slows time, like the first day at a new school or job. Maybe just knowing, viscerally, how far you have to go makes the second half faster. I don't know.

Life seems the opposite of a run, though. Getting to a certain point can seem effortless, almost haphazard. The hard part -- maybe the impossible part -- is getting back to where you came from.