It was 7:48 p.m. on a warm Friday evening in La Jolla, California. As I slowly strolled across the street to my car after my friend and I stuffed our faces with tacos, I looked ahead of me and saw that the sun was about to set.
Immediately, I yelled, “OOH! THE SUN IS SETTING! WE HAVE TO GO FIND IT.”
For the first time in over a year, I let my instincts guide me. I drove toward the sun and where my intuition was telling me the coastline was, meandered through some quiet residential streets, and wound up at a little inlet where about 25 people were all sitting, waiting for the big moment. And a parking space was open right in front.
We scrambled out of the car, headed straight for the perfect spot open on some rocks overlooking the ocean, and watched as the sun slowly dipped below the horizon, showering the water and cliffs with a warm, glowing light.
For a moment we just sat, smelling the saltwater and feeling the warm breeze and ocean mist on our faces, taking it all in. And I felt a sense of peace and serendipity that I realized had become foreign to me since before the pandemic.
Back in January, which I think was one of the darkest periods of this time for a lot of people, I wrote this short piece about feeling like I was in a state of limbo—what was “normal” and vibrant was too far away, but the “return to normal” was at too great a distance to be able to see it. But I knew that, even though I was sitting in discomfort, I was getting closer and closer to my new version of happiness.
I didn’t know what it would look like. For a while, I thought I would snap into an overwhelming sense of exultation, joy, and a fanfare of ecstasy after feeling repressed for so long.
But so far, for me, it’s feeling a little more like a calming sense of utter peace.
It’s not getting angry or panicking when you get a flat tire an hour into your road trip because you’re just so happy to be traveling with your friend again.
It’s learning a little more about what you want in life every day and trusting you’re on the right path.
It’s choosing people who bring you a sense of warmth and comfort and allow you to be completely yourself.
It’s accepting that some days will just be gloomier than others.
It’s realizing how much you’ve gained from experiences that might not have always been the easiest.
It’s knowing that, whatever happens next, you can handle it.
I think happiness is something that is constantly evolving. It looks different on every person, and it’s made up of different pieces as we move through life.
This is especially true right now, as we’re all still processing the trauma of the past year and a half and, because of that—like a very wise friend pointed out to me recently—our emotional ranges have narrowed a bit.
I know that it’s not a destination, and that I’ll never figure out how to be happy all the time (because it’s impossible). But I like the pieces of the puzzle that I’m starting to put together to make up what happiness looks like for me at this moment in time.
And those pieces feel like comfort, warmth, trust, balance, and peace. What version of happiness could you work toward?