For at least the last  15 years or so, I always seem to find myself getting a little bit crazy at this time of year.

Not Christmas, although that has become a problem of its own. No, it's the first 10 days or so of December that seem to throw me off a little, whether it's becoming overly emotional at dopey songs or missing people I haven't seen in a long, long time.

I guess the best way to explain it is that December 11th is my birthday. When I was younger, I was excited -- "Hey, I'm 9! -- and of course there were the milestone ones like 16, 18 and 21, but the last birthday I can remember that actually expanded my world was 25. When I was 25, you had to be at least 25 to be able to rent a car. I don't think I rushed out and rented a car, just as I didn't get a driver's license on my 16th birthday, register for the draft on my 18th or vote on my 21st. Back then ...

After a while, though ...

<em>Oh Lord, I'm 30 ...</em>

<em>Jeez, am I really 40?</em>

<em>Can I possibly be 50?</em>

All birthdays were doing by that point was taking things away. It had been a long time since I could have been a prodigy, but I was long past young hotshot and well into grizzled veteran before I realized it.

Most of that was my own fault. Instead of graduating from high school at age 17, going through college in four years and having wonderful memories of my alma mater, I did almost everything I could do to destroy my chance at a bright future. When I was 5 or 6 years old, adults told my mother what an amazing future I would have.

I didn't do amazing, although I was lucky enough (the second time around) to marry into amazing. My lovely wife of 20 years -- going on 21 -- was a brilliant scientist and a wonderful person, and my two children -- who have everything of me except my DNA -- are both sky's-the-limit people who are succeeding beyond their years in the early part of their careers.

<em>But am I really 60?</em>

<em>61?</em>

<em>62?</em>

[caption id="attachment_1826" align="alignleft" width="199" caption="Back in the day"]<a href="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/20110222_1.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-1826" title="20110222_1" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/20110222_1-199x300.jpg" alt="" width="199" height="300" /></a>[/caption]

If there is one thing that pisses me off more than anything, it is that 12 years ago, I had a job that I thought I would do until I was 75 years old. I was a newspaper columnist and a damn good one. I won awards every year and I was developing a big following. But after five years, a boss for whom I had absolutely no respect as a journalist decided that I wasn't going to be a columnist anymore. What I later learned that really infuriated me was that when our publisher asked him why I wasn't doing the column anymore, the jagoff lied and told him it had been my choice.

We received dozens of letters to the editor complaining, and they didn't run any of them.

I really enjoyed being a sportswriter and sports columnist the first 16 years of my career, and I loved the five years I wrote a news column. I really thought I would do it as long as I was able. But my last seven years in the business were just a chore comparatively, and when budget cuts took away my job in 2008, I had already started counting the days till I could retire.

I never once while I was growing up had a desire to own my own business, and I suppose I was naive to think that as long as I worked hard and did a good job, the people who signed my paychecks would treat me fairly.

I doubt that I'll ever work for a paycheck again. I did earn a little money this year -- $1,300 playing fantasy baseball on the Internet and $250 in a writing contest on All Voices, where I have blogged for years -- but that's not much.

I do have some good memories of at least a couple of my employers. The very best boss I ever had was the two years I worked as a sports editor and sports columnist at the <em>Greeley Tribune</em> in Colorado. Editor Ron Stewart was an absolute prince, but even if I hadn't been dumb enough to leave for a job in Reno, he moved on to Oregon himself soon after that.

I'm not in denial. I know there were times in my career when I slacked off -- or got burned out for a while -- and deserved punishment. But in the 18 years I spent working in Ontario, Calif., there were four different times I got, well, screwed.

<em>Fool me once ...</em>

I never intended to be retired when I was 58 years old, and it has taken me a long time to feel OK about it. I'm not sure I'm there yet, but with my wife's health problems, I can't leave her 40-50 hours a week to earn money that we don't need.

I guess I'm getting to the age when I'll feel OK about it.

<em>Am I really 63?</em>

Four more days, dude. Four more days.

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