Note to the young:

It will find you.

You'll be at the beach, lost in the soothing rhythm of the waves, the sweet bracing sting of salt air in your lungs, and for one primordial sweep of the sea that pounding on the shore will sound like the ticking of a clock.

You'll be looking in the mirror one morning, post-shave, post-curling iron, and while you're looking to make sure you didn't miss a spot, you'll find a wrinkle. Then two. Then three.

I can't tell you everything, but I can tell you about those isolated moments at the stop light when you are suddenly overcome with a deep but fleeting sense of loss, overwhelming in its magnitude, puzzling in its brevity, reassuring in its rapid disappearance. I won't share all, but I will share that the song that makes you fight tears will someday work its way into your soul, and I can tell you that you will welcome it there.

Find solace in smooth skin, in fleet foot, in sturdy stance. Run your fingertip over unbroken form. There comes a bump in the arc of your life when you look behind you and the ground is higher than the ground where you now stand.

Gravity will scare you at first. Maybe at some point, you'll welcome it as it pulls you into its embrace, but don't expect that time to come soon. You can decide to embrace it first, to glean character and outward signs of wisdom from what you feared would betray fatigue and irrelevance. People will reassure you, but you won't believe them until you believe yourself.

Maybe you will take the pounding of the waves, the ticking of the clock, and craft them into music.