i'm like 40 something now and it just hit me, like a physical gut punch, sitting here at my desk, staring at this spreadsheet with all these numbers that mean absolutely nothing to me. nothing. nada. zéro. i remember the exact moment i decided. it was senior year, fall, crisp air, leaves turning that crazy red and orange. we were out on the field, practice wrapping up, sun going down. i was good, not pro good, but good enough for a shot at coaching college or even high school, you know? i loved it. the smell of the grass, the mud on my cleats, the shouting, the camaraderie. the feeling of my body actually WORKING. my old man, god bless him, he sat me down. said, "son, you gotta think about the long game. pension. stability. a desk job, you get your weekends. you can still do your sports on the side." he meant well. he always meant well. he just never really understood that "on the side" was never gonna be enough for me. i got the job. right out of college. municipal office. clerical. not even interesting clerical. just... paper pushing. forms. regulations. rules. for thirty years. three decades. can you even imagine? i traded all that green open space, that wind in my face, for a cubicle. a goddamn cubicle. at first, it was fine. the money was decent. i bought a house. got married. had kids. played a lot of pick-up basketball after work, still ran marathons on the weekends. told myself i was living the dream, the sensible dream. i was responsible. a good provider. but the marathons stopped being enough. the pick-up games got fewer and farther between. my body started to feel... sluggish. heavy. like it was trying to tell me something, but i was too busy ignoring it, too busy signing off on another pointless form. every morning, i'd wake up and feel this dread, this little knot in my stomach. another day. another ten hours inside. under fluorescent lights. i went back to school last year. night classes. online. trying to get some kind of certification in... something different. something to spark a change. but it's just more pressure, more studying, more sitting. i'm almost done, but it doesn't feel like it's gonna fix anything. the kids in my class, they're half my age. they talk about their "dreams" and "passions" and i just sit there, a silent old man, wondering where mine went. my wife, she tries. "you're just having a mid-life crisis," she says, trying to make a joke. but it's not a joke. it feels like i made the wrong choice on literally the first major decision of my adult life, and i've just been living out the consequences ever since. every single day. today, this morning, i looked out the window. it's a beautiful day. sunny. a little breezy. perfect day for a hike, for a run, for coaching a bunch of kids on a field. and i'm here. staring at a screen. and i just... i felt it. this incredible ache. this regret that just punches you in the gut and twists it. i sold my soul for a pension. a goddamn pension. and now what? now i'm almost there, almost retired, and i have nothing left of who i used to be. no energy. no drive. just this profound sense of... loss. like i missed out on my whole damn life.