The Homeward Migration of Souls by Hal J. Boyd

Walter knew that what happened in the first seven years of his life hadn’t, necessarily, determined what had happened in the rest of his life but he also knew that in the first seven years his mold was cast, in the second seven years it had hardened, and by the end of the third seven years, his form was pretty much set. He was well beyond the age of twenty-one, over twice that age, by the time he started to feel that he wasn’t living an authentic life.