Two weeks ago today, on Easter, I turned 44 years old.

While I am very happy to be alive and so grateful for all I have, I admit that ultimately my immediate thought when I woke up that morning was, “I’m… not… young.”

Apparently I said that out loud, to which I was told, “Remember, you’re only has old as you feel.”

So then, out of curiosity, I had to ask myself without thinking about it: “How old do I feel?”

The response in my mind: “Late twenties? Maybe… 29?”

I then began exploring the reason why my subconscious had decided that despite having a body that was born in 1981, and having a brain full of memories and experience going back for 44 years, I instinctively “feel” 29 years old.

Then it hit me: Oh, age 29 was a very specific, life-changing year.

Not only did I become a parent for the first time, but that was also the age when I moved from Nashville to my hometown, only to have to move back after 9 months of us going through all of our savings due to a lack of jobs, then having to return to Tennessee and ask for our old jobs back. Ultimately, I was a first-time parent who led my family to unofficial bankruptcy.

Uh… trauma much?

I realized during these past two weeks, that in a form of self-preservation, half of my brain got “frozen” back in 2010 at age 29; the other half powered through years of working our way out of debt and raising not only our first child, but another one as well. Not to mention, grinding through years of experience to build my career.

Apparently, this revelation was further realized in that I just binged every episode of the popular show, Severance. I think I “severed” the part of my brain that was the fun, adventurous, and uninhibited half- in an effort to power through the next 15 years.

But now, after nearly a year of having successfully moved back to my hometown in Alabama, this second time around, it’s like I woke up from my self-preservation mode. The two parts of my brain have now combined and I see my life from the full perspective:

I get to enjoy my life now. It was a challenging 15 years for me.

But now, I have been married nearly 17 years, and my wife and I have raised a 14 year-old son and a 9 year-old daughter.

I am 44 years old, but I feel 29…. again.