Can somebody help me translate "Se me hizo"?  My Spanish is pretty decent, but not great.  A lot of grammar escapes me.  

A Mexican friend of mine has an album entitled "Se me hizo tarde la vida", and I don't know what that means.  He has tried to explain it, but he doesn't speak a lot of English.  

A native speaker told me it roughly translates as "I got the best of life."  This must be idiomatic, because I can't figure out for the life of me how that translates.  

My Mexican friend told me that another use for "se me hizo" would be, if he was late, he would say "se me hizo tarde."  This makes a little more sense to me, in that I think it would literally translate as "I was made late."  Is this right?  

Where the confusion comes in is that I asked if, for example, somebody turned on the air conditioning, could I say "se me hizo frio."  He told me that this would not make sense.  

How does this translate literally, and when does one use it?

Thanks,
LDL

In Spanish they have a way of speaking as if to assign the blame away from themselves.

They say things like, "Se me olvido" ...which basically translates into "I forgot". It's really saying something closer to "It forgot me".

If you literally want to say, "I forgot"...you would say, "Olvide", which literally says, "I forgot"...but you are admitting blame.

"Se me hizo tarde" is a way to say, "I was late", although you are saying it as though you are assigning your tardiness to some third party.

"Se me hizo tarde la vida" is more like saying "Life passed me by"...or "My life started late"...rather than "I got the best of life".

There are some accents I didn't put in.

I ran this by my wife (Mexican and pretty good interpreter) and she agreed with my assessment.

Boarslayer
HS Spanish teacher

Thank you, sir.  That's why I love this site.

I have a friend that is from Mexico.  He concured, it means "My life was late".

http://www.spanishdict.com/translation

Wow!  It was like you pulled that right out of my head!

I lived in Venezuela for a couple of years and had the exact same impression.

excellent explanation.  translating song lyrics is a great way to learn spanish colloquialisms.

It means Obama is a crackwhore in Spanish