The Knowing

I was at the gym last week.

In the hot tub - a group of teenage boys. Loud. Laughing. Talking about nothing. In the cold plunge - a man, maybe forty. Alone. Eyes closed. Silent.

I stood there and thought: how do we get from these boys to the quiet man in the cold water?

You don't wake up one day and decide to become the quiet man in the cold water. Not in one moment.

You just grow. Slowly. Invisibly.

And one day you look back and can't find the exact moment it happened. That's the strange thing about growing up. You can't see it from the inside. Only from the outside. Only in mirrors you didn't look for - like a stranger in a cold plunge who somehow looks familiar.

Those boys don't know yet that it's passing. Not the silence. Not the cold water. The knowing.