Three Men in a Sauna
A short scene from the sauna bench and the thing it keeps teaching me about going first.
Three men walked into a sauna.
I know that sounds like the start of a bad joke. It wasn’t. It was three different days this week. Same room. Same bench. Same thread running through all three.
The sauna is where I spend about twenty minutes most days. I go in. I sit. I sweat. Most days it’s just me and whoever else happens to be there.
Monday. A guy I’d seen around was already on the top bench. I sat down and said something small. Something like, “nice to have a break from the phone.”
He looked at me for a second. Then he nodded. “Yeah. I make myself leave it in the locker. It’s the only place I don’t check it.”
We sat with that for a minute. That was the whole exchange. Somehow it was enough.
A few days later. Different guy. I asked him how his week was going. He laughed the kind of laugh you laugh when the week has not been going well. He said he’s been bringing his work stress home with him. Can’t seem to find the door on it.
That’s the Airlock Protocol. It’s a lesson I wrote. One I teach. And this guy in the sauna just described the whole thing to me without knowing it had a name.
Third guy. Same week. He’d heard me mention what I was working on. Iron Compass. Lessons for fathers. Helping men come back to their families. He listened and said he was making something too. A few days later he handed me a book that had mattered to him. “I think you’d like this.”
I drove home with a wet head and someone else’s book on the passenger seat.
Here’s the thing I keep coming back to.
If you put yourself out there, even a little, something validates you. You don’t have to wait for permission. You don’t have to feel ready. You just have to go first. Other men are waiting for someone to go first. Other men are carrying the same drift, the same frustration, the same ache to be better for their families. They just need somebody to open the door.
That’s really the whole idea of this letter.
I’m going first. I’m a husband to Rhea. Father to three, Isabella, Austin, and Zoe. Zoe sees the world sideways and has taught me more about attention than any book. I’m a creator in a mountain town in North Carolina who drifted from faith for twelve years and recently started praying again, because I couldn’t hold my daughter’s hardest moments any other way. I came back. I’m still coming back.
Every Saturday I’m going to send you a letter like this one. Sometimes a scene from a sauna. Sometimes a morning with one of the kids. Sometimes something I’m learning about faith, family, or leading a household without grinding myself into dust. Short. Honest. Written like I’d tell it to a friend.
If you put yourself out there too, even a little, I’d love to know who you are. Hit reply. Tell me what’s on your plate this week.
See you Saturday.
Chris