This is probably going to be the most self-indulgent post I’ll write here—and if you’ve done yourself the misfortune of reading all that I’ve written, all I can say is you have my appreciation, and my sympathies. Please at least read things better than the drivel I put out in this blog.

With that said, my night was such a level of serenity and bliss that I’m genuinely at a loss for words. I’m admittedly five glasses of wine and a delicious salmon and salad dinner into the night, but everything—even the words I’ve decided to put here—feels inadequate to express what I felt tonight.

I saw a master of music tenderly play along with someone who they shared a long connection with, both grateful for the time. I saw the scars of brain damage be subsumed by the joy of music. Language barriers became not obstacles, but opportunities for learning. The unversed were invited to try, and guided by the master, they experienced the joy of creation. The home-cooked food tasted better than the finest food I have ever eaten. The wine was delicious and smooth. I shared no blood relation with anyone in the room, but I felt as close to them as I do anyone on this earth.

Even that paragraph is a pale shadow of what I felt. A joy as simple as it was profound, enjoying good food and creative expression with other people far more talented than I currently am. It was the distillation of that sense of unified goal felt in the best facets of academia or sports—a love of expression and improvement. Effort is fun and the process is as gratifying as the result.

I feel guilty in a sense, for even expressing this. Because I know that for others, this night may have been the worst in their life. Or just another notch in the dreadful march of fruitless struggle. Feelings I’ve had in the (recent and not-so-recent) past; feelings I’ll surely have in the future.

But this was good. This is one of the best nights I will ever have in my life, and I feel nothing but gratitude and joy at being fortunate enough to have been a part of it. And I dearly hope that everyone gets to experience this in their life. It’s not a feeling I think can be found in ritzy hotels and breathtaking locales, but when you are finally able to sit in a room with people you connect with, where all are unafraid to express themselves and be seen. A place of family, in the most spiritual sense of the word.