For my son’s 11th birthday party we took a group of young men to a laser tag park. The day was filled with laughter, happy screams, sweat, play, jokes and smiles. There were moments where the boys were giggling like small children and then moments where they were competitive and masculine like men. I watched them switch easily and quickly between strategy on the laser tag field and giggles when they had been shot by another boy.

On the ride home there were 6 boys in my car. In some moments they would be aggressively seeing who could push each other harder in the back seat or who could be the most macho, and then moments later they were all singing along to sponge bob square pants, knowing every word and singing it in harmony.

When we got home they ran around outside moving between the pool and the trampoline where they threw balls at each other and saw who could jump the highest. In between these moments of competition there were childlike giggles and soft conversations.

At lunch, I watched the boys eat platefuls of freshly made food as if they were full-grown men. I wondered where they could possibly be putting all of the food and realized that these little boys were in the process of becoming men.

That night as I stood up from meditation and got ready for bed I was reflecting upon my day and how much fun it had been. I thought about how life is such a beautiful process of becoming and how I was no different than these young men. I was in a state of transition, somewhere between the egoic self who I had known and the authentic version of me that stepped ever closer to the version of me who I was meant to develop into. There is something magickal about being in this state of transition, one foot in both phases of life and unapologetically shifting my weight from one phase to the other to see which one feels the best in that moment.