I thought I found the secret of the universe.

And then I lost it.

I have felt many things this past year. One thing was, thankfully, intense bliss and joy. I like to joke that it was “back when I was enlightened for a month or two.” I loved everyone, felt connected to everyone, and felt that I was in the perfect place at the perfect time. It didn’t last long, and I would spiral down after I lost it. But more on that, later.

This is an excerpt from December of last year.

I spent the winter in chills and revelation. I wrote many emails. I realized that I was not introverted, and that I actually liked people, a lot. I reached out to old friends and reconnected, sending love with unexpected thank you cards and letters detailing my true feelings: that I had always been afraid of speaking, but that I had always loved the people in my life, deeply and truly, even if we fell out of touch.

I explained to everyone that I could that I was so happy some days that I felt like I could disappear. I was likely insufferable. I told the Young Man that any day now, the gods of this Virtual Reality Simulator would notice that I achieved enlightenment, pull the cord on my simulation, and congratulate me on my fine gameplay. Or that I would ascend into the ether — of Heaven, or whatever others believed in.

The Young Man gave me a look when I said things like this, and said, “I don’t want that.” I laughed.

For the first time in my life, I think I knew True Happiness.

It was different from the happiness I once called happiness — the exuberance you feel when something good happens to you, like getting into a good university, or dating someone new. Or the pleasure you get from watching a good TV show, or eating something yummy.

This was a happiness that was independent of good or bad. It was a happiness that was there, underneath it all. Good things were even better, and bad things were gifts.

Perhaps it’s what they call contentment, inner peace, or joy.

Don’t get me wrong — I’ve experienced those things throughout my life, just like any human being. It’s funny, isn’t it? They were always the simplest of moments: an afternoon in the grass of a newly seeded lawn in Madison Square Park, staring up at the sunlight; the quiet of a sleepover when everyone is reluctant to let go of good conversation. But they came and they went, and I’m not sure I was entirely aware of it when it was happening. They were moments of peace, joy, bliss, happiness — whatever your chosen word for it is.

But in those heady days, in the winter of 2016–2017, I knew more than moments. There were days, and weeks, of bliss. I wanted to do everything, speak to everyone, and show the parts of me that I’d always hidden.

I lived for those moments, and those stretches of time. I lived through all the ups and downs of my body, yearning for those feelings. In those moments, I knew that no matter what, this was how I wanted to live. No matter what kind of foods I could or couldn’t eat, or what things happened to my body, this was what I wanted.

~

There were nights, though, that I lay awake with bubblings and fizzings and twingings in my body, waking me every time I fell asleep, and I thought:

Why me?

When will this end?

Am I broken?

This is too much. This is unbearable.

But I will bear it, because what choice do I have?

Today, I no longer feel this way. I know that if I think that I’ve finally discovered “the answer,” I’m 100% wrong. In 2017, I learned that happiness is hard kept. I consider whatever I felt in December of last year as a gift of a sort — an example of what life can be if I get out of my own way.

I don’t know what caused it. Was it meditation? Was it good friends? Was it simply time? I’ll probably never know.

More and more, as I step into old fears, I feel True Happiness. Who knew? The secret to the universe may be in confronting those old parts of you — those fears that protect you from whatever’s out there— and realizing that you probably won’t die.