So, my friend Carol has this theory that you truly begin your middle aged life once you become thirty three and a third. She's based this on the idea that if we live to be ~100 years old (yea right), the first third of your life is from 0 to 33.3 years old, the second (middle) third is until you're 66.6 years old, and so on...

She totally buys into this thing too. Like she'll even make you a 33.3, middle aged narwhal birthday cake if you're lucky like my buddy, Nick.

So anyway, with that said, Carol tells me that today marks my 33.3 year old birthday... and by her standards, I'm now officially middle aged.

And to be honest, even without this incredibly important milestone, I've been thinking about this a lot lately.

Over the past few years, I've felt older than ever (I mean, duh, right?) ...but seriously. I've never ever felt any sort of oldness until recently. I mean, I've never really thought much about age at all. 25 year old kids, 45 year old kids, whatever. If you wanna have fun and hang out, age just isn't something I've ever cared about.

But these last few years, things have felt quite a bit different.

• I've been working more than I ever have.
• I've had more stress than ever.
• I've got damned gray hairs appearing on my head.
• I've lost friends.
• I have less energy.
• I'm not skating or playing with toys that aren't computers as much.
• I'm not being as crazy.
• I'm simply having less fun than I ever have.

That shit sucks ... and is making me at least feel old.

I'm not sure if it's that my last grueling job broke me? the stress of my current job potentially failing? my wife and I's love for a lifestyle we can't afford? getting to hangout with friends less? computers? not staying fit? actually getting old? all of that?

Either way, I hope I can use this weird-ass middle-aged life theory as some excuse to go on a vision quest or something and figure out wtf I'm doing these days. I think I need to get some priorities straight.