If you have spent the last week inexplicably emotional about a space mission, you are not alone and you are not being dramatic. Something real is happening to you. Something your nervous system recognized before your brain caught up to it, and it is worth understanding why, because the reason is actually about a lot more than space.

Here’s what happened. Four humans got into a rocket and went to the moon, farther from Earth than any humans have ever traveled in the history of our species. And they were so good at it, so genuinely moved by it, and so articulate about what they were seeing and feeling, that millions of people who have been running on anxiety and dread for the last eleven years just stopped for a moment and finally exhaled.

Did you feel it too? That specific relief that’s hard to name. I found myself trying to understand it. The closest I can get is this: the feeling of watching something go right and realizing, somewhere deep in your body, that you had forgotten things could go right. Because when something actually goes right, when the people in charge do their jobs well, speak in full sentences, make decisions that protect people instead of endangering them, the reaction can feel strangely emotional. What you’re feeling isn’t just relief, it’s grief. Grief for every year you spent bracing. Grief for how normal the bracing became. Grief for how completely you forgot that competence was once ordinary.

That is not a small thing. That is your nervous system coming up for air. I want you to enjoy it. And when they land, and they will land, and the news cycle will move on immediately as it always does, I want you to remember that you felt this.