A good friend of mine, Sarah, sent me an audio message that reflected to me a simple but stunning truth.
That I’m genuinely the happiest I’ve ever been.
- happy in my relationships
- happy with what I’m doing with my work
- happy with where I live, the environments I’m in, my activities
- feeling mentally and physically healthy
Before I get into today’s writing, perhaps we should take a look at what “happy” even means.
Plus, you can read about the memory that was my happiest memory, until now.
Please note that this essay (like any other essay on the blog) is a draft and a work in progress. I may come back and edit, re-work it as it evolves. Winky-face. ; )
Table of Contents
A little bit of context
Sarah and Human Design
My friend Sarah has offered me a human design reading. But before Sarah, a fellow projector, offered me a reading, she cast a vivid picture of my life on her canvas.
She described that I am in “a very happy place,” broadly.
She reiterated a phrase I’ve quipped, that “2026 is the best year of my life.”
“The projector signature is success,” she told me.
And if things are going really well for me, and I’m having a great time doing what I’m doing naturally, then she could see how the information in a reading may not be needed at this time.
She complimented me, saying it seems that I’m living my design and having a good time doing what I am doing.
Human design, from Sarah’s perspective, has to do with the challenges and opportunities available for one’s particular set-up.
I thanked Sarah for affirming that yes, 2026 is probably my most successful year yet, as a whole, in terms of reflecting some culmination of a core essence of who I truly am.
And besides. 2026 has ushered great themes for me as a 40-year-old…
Family
For one, a big theme of this year has seemed to be family. My chosen family, as well as my blood family.
I’ve been so grateful as to have my family visit Spain this summer, to celebrate my aunt’s 70th birthday.
(See my mom and I below in the “piña colada gallery,” hehehe.)
Content warning: alcohol
In addition, I am so blessed, too, to have both Sarah and my good friend Sol come visit me later this year as well. The three of us will be ringing in the new year—in true Spanish style—to the tune of the 12 campanas del Año Nuevo.
(The Spanish say here, “toque madera”—knock on wood—as they knock soft fists to their own heads.)
Repair
Expressing a core essence of who I truly am—and being able to see myself as I learn, grow & share—makes me feel whole. I feel able to shine brightly and sustain myself and perhaps even others.
I’ve done a fair amount of what I call “repair” to myself, or repair for myself. Now I can look to bring “repair” into the world. Repair to land. Repair to aspects of humanity. I’ve asked Sarah what this might look like in terms of living my design?
What is happiness, really?
You knew it was coming. Let’s zoom out just a moment to take a look at the dictionary.
If not literally, at least to question and shine a lens on what happiness is or truly could be.
Even though it was once my brother who said, “I live on dictionary.com,” let’s queue up ol’ Merriam Webster…
| happiness defintion1 |
|---|
| a state of well-being and contentment: JOY |
| a pleasurable or satisfying experience |
| “Happiness.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/happiness. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026. |
It’s not to say that I can’t “improve” aspects of my life or that of others. But this period leaps out as a time I truly grok a sensation, a definition, a notion of happiness.
(And if you need a definition of grok, no worries; M.W. has got you covered!)
Of course, happiness also means a lot of things to a lot of people. I can only be clear enough to see and feel it for me.
My first conscious memory (i.e. my ex-happiest memory)
For years, when people asked me the question of what was my happiest memory, I could only tell them one thing.
But now that answer is changing.
Seriously, I know I’ve written about this elsewhere. I know I have. It just seems to be lost in my records.
So here is version infinity plus one.
I remember being with my father on a lake somewhere, on a yellow raft. I would touch the water. I would see the water. I would see the blue in the sky and the sun. And I knew that my dad was my dad, the raft was a raft, and water was water. This was my first conscious memory.
This moment evinces the definition of what “happy” means to me.
For me, just to be conscious and clear of being, and knowing what is happening, is a state of being happy. This moment was the first time in this life that I can recall that being so.
But what about now challenges this memory as possibly the happiest I’ve ever been?
Could I be even more happy now? And if so, why?
Maybe I’m happier now if and only if I’ve gained any more awareness or have any amount more consciousness than I’ve ever had of the situations and circumstances with and around me.
Now and Then: Circular Time
Robin Wall Kimmerer, whose work stays with me, shares wondrous quotes in Braiding Sweetgrass. Here is her penning on the nature of time.
In the way of linear time, you might hear Nanabozho’s stories as mythic lore of history, a recounting of the long-ago past and how things came to be. But in circular time, these stories are both history and prophecy, stories for a time yet to come. If time is a turning circle, there is a place where history and prophecy converge—the footprints of First Man lie on the path behind us and on the path ahead.
Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass
What happens when we truly become native to a place, when we finally make a home? Where are the stories that lead the way? If time does in fact eddy back on itself, maybe the journey of the First Man will provide footsteps to guide the journey of the Second.
Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass
- “Happiness.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/happiness. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026. ↩︎