OVER THE HILL (AND FAR AWAY)...

One of the odd things I've noticed about myself as I get older is that my sense of distance is greater, and that places seem farther away from me than they once used to.  I don't mean visually, but geographically.  For example, the environs of my old neighbourhood once seemed, in my subconscious mind, to be so close that if I looked out of my window, there they would be for me to gaze upon as though I actually still lived there.

This feeling was no doubt made more acute by the fact that, when I first moved from my previous abode, I returned every weekday to attend the school across from my former home.  After school, once I'd had my tea, I would visit pals in the area and, truth to tell, I was along there so often that it probably never quite registered that I no longer lived there and was merely a visitor.

The distance between the two neighbourhoods seemed practically non-existent back then, and, to me, was no greater walk than the local shops at the end of my street.  It was the same with most locales I was familiar with - they seemed no farther away than the time it took me to think of them.  My house was like the TARDIS - outside its doors was any location I wanted to visit.  All I had to do was walk through them and I'd be there.

Nowadays my perceptions are strangely different.  My old neighbourhood seems as distant as MORDOR, and a lifetime away to reach.  What was once a brief walk now stretches before me like an arduous trek from which I may not return.  Whereas I never before felt far removed from any familiar childhood place, I now feel remote and isolated from them, and they seem to be as difficult to reach as the fabled BRIGADOON. 

I suppose that's as good a definition of 'over the hill' as it's possible to get.  Funny how I never before realised how literal a description of advancing years it actually is.  When you're over the hill, once-familiar 'places' on the other side are far more difficult to access - and it's an uphill struggle to even attempt the task.

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"Ah, sweet boyhood, how eager are we as boys to be quit of thee, with what regret do we look back on thee before our man's race is half-way run!"  J. Meade Falkner.