Fifty-two years ago was my last summer ‘at home.’ The term barely applies, since I returned to a place I’d never been before. I had completed my first year of college. My parents, who had already entered the instability that eventually led to their marital demise, were living in an apartment in Brick Town, NJ, along with my younger brother, fresh out of sixth grade, and my oldest brother, already a buoyant ne’er-do-well. I worked in a perfume bottling factory, slept on the living room couch, and spent as much time as possible away from the broiling domestic tension. Rightfully confused about where I fit in life.

As always, I rode my bicycle, both for transportation and sanity. Late afternoon, I’d return from my shift, shower off the scent of the day, and pedal away, often not returning until everyone had finished their TV and gone to bed. One of my favorite journeys was the five-mile trek to Point Pleasant Beach. Long after the sun worshippers were gone, I sat on the sand, in the dark, arms wrapped around my knees, staring into the black Atlantic. Seeing absolutely nothing. Hearing naught but the surf’s steady roll.

These days, having reached the age of daily blood pressure checks, I always follow one cheerful phlebotomist’s advice to conjure ‘my happy place’ during the moments of meditation before I inflate the cuff. Oftentimes, my mind returns to that beach on those starless summer nights.

One might imagine that I felt small, all alone on those miles of Jersey shore, staring down the infinite darkness. But I did not. I felt adequately large. Sufficient. Equal to the task of becoming a man with marginal familial guidance. I felt at peace that I would create my place in the world. I suppose that’s why I recall that solitary time as a happy one.

Of all the tensions that the awkward pose explores, there is none perhaps so vast as the tension between the cosmic reality of our insignificance, and the all-consuming reality of our personal consciousness. Every day, all day, at every moment, I am totally aware of myself. What I do. Where I am. How I feel. I cannot escape for an instant the utter reality of being me. Nor can you escape being you.

Yet my existence is meaningless in the face of time or the scale of the universe. No matter what I ever do, or did, or will do, I will never make any measurable impact on who we are, where we’ve come from, or where we’re going. Even the most influential man of the 21st century, narcissist Donald Trump, will have no impact on the trajectory of the universe. It is simply too large for any single human to affect.

Over eons, we humans will impact the fate of the earth. Possibly the mechanisms of our solar system. Certainly not on the eternality of the universe.

And yet being alive feels so vital, so important, so critical to every one of us. We are each the center of our own personalized universe. We share ourselves with lovers, enemies, and friends; though ultimately each of us is unknowable to anyone else.

Does this irreconcilability leave me despondent or depressed? Not in the least. I look into the void. Acknowledge my insignificance. And carry on as if I matter.