Past the Boundaries

When I was a little girl, there were places I could go. Places far far away from home. There was the playground: it was three blocks away! Then I got older and went to school: it was five blocks away! The two good buddies I made at school were girls who lived (pretty much) between me and school. In the neighborhood, we just didn't play with kids who lived more than a half-block away. So having friends from five blocks away was really stepping out into the big wide world!

Now I live in the country. I drive two miles before I even come to a stop sign. Four or five miles to the nearest little villages.

We're visiting my folks for a few days. Having skipped three out of the last four days jogging, I knew I couldn't allow myself to skip it while out of town again. So today I jogged down to the playground, and [gasp!] kept right on going past it! I usually jog two miles a day, and when I got to my grade-school, I had completed only 1/4 of my jog. So I had quite a ways to go yet before I could even turn around and head back home.

It's a funny feeling to go past the boundaries. It gives an odd feeling of being all grown-up, and yet the amazingly fresh memory of how "far away" those places were -- places that were once off-limits because of being a whole mile away. It's a funny feeling to be halfway home from my old grade-school, and see the intersection near my parents' house up ahead, and realize that if I were at home, traversing that distance wouldn't even take me to the next-door neighbor's house.

I can't even imagine how it must be for Texans and Alaskans to find themselves in a small midwestern city where everything is so close by, where the FAR end of town is about 15 minutes away, where that 15-minute radius can offer nearly any store or restaurant or entertainment you could wish for. Being from a place with low population density, in my hometown I now feel like a gawky tourist.