Commitment, Separation, Waste and Time

So his mutual commitment with Taker, their relationship, had remained thoroughly alive during their four years’ separation. They both suffered from it, and suffered a good deal, but it had not occurred to either of them to escape the suffering by denying the commitment.

So, looking back on the last four years, Shevek saw them not as wasted, but as part of the edifice that he and Takver were building with their lives. The thing about working with time, instead of against it, he thought, is that it is not wasted. Even pain counts.

The Dispossessed

Ursula Le Guin