What happened to the writer's son that changed her relationship with happiness?

Her son was diagnosed with leukemia at age two. She describes the version of herself that emerged as someone who could hold a vomit bucket with one hand while Googling port infection symptoms with the other, who memorized which nurses were gentle with needles, and who developed a sixth sense for when a fever required an emergency run. He went into remission, and then life offered another crisis.

Why does the essay say she thought happiness was bullshit in her twenties?

Because she believed happiness existed for other people rather than as something she could hold onto. She disappeared into a relationship like a full-time job, gave voicemail versions of herself to family, and performed being there without actually arriving. When she finally left that relationship and felt genuinely free, she thought she'd solved the problem. Then motherhood and illness arrived.

What does 'we never made it to the beach' mean in this essay?

The title captures the recurring experience of planning for joy and having circumstances intervene before you get there. The essay uses this as a frame for learning that happiness cannot be deferred to when things are finally okay, because things are never finally stable. The only place happiness can be held is in the present moment, even the imperfect ones.

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We Never Made It to the Beach: Learning to Hold Happiness

By Christina Ciampaglia • December 24, 2025

I used to think happiness was bullshit. Not the concept, I believed it existed out there somewhere, for other people. I just didn't think it was something you could actually hold onto. In my early twenties, I disappeared into a relationship like it was a full-time job. My family got the voicemail version of me. My friends got rain checks. I was present, technically, but not really there, you know that thing where you're nodding along in a conversation but your brain is doing that staticky TV screen thing? Yeah. That.When I finally got tired of performing happiness instead of feeling it, I did the bravest thing I'd ever done: I left. Just walked out of a long-term relationship and into the terrifying, liberating unknown. I felt like I could do anything. Like I'd finally figured out the cheat code to my own life.And then I became a mom.Look, they warn you that having kids changes everything. What they don't tell you is that "everything" means your entire concept of who you are gets shredded and reassembled while you're running on 90 minutes of sleep and someone else's bodily fluids are on your shirt. But I was still that person...