That's a heart wrenching kind of experience, I'm glad it could catapault you to new heights. Those glimpses may create a kind of desire for "that which cannot be desired" but they also give you new perspective, it's much easier to find a place that you have already been.
Your experience is quite similar to one of the characters in my short stories collection, one of the few not directly based off my own experience, although not that far off, really.