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People spend their whole lives working on things they care about, raising families, creating stuff, helping others - and most of them seem pretty satisfied with that, which suggests meaning isn't just something we're making up. I think meaning is real but also personal, like how I get genuine fulfillment from fixing a car's engine and then going home to play some games, even though neither of those things is objectively "important" in the universe. The fact that you're even asking this question means you're already looking for meaning, and that search itself is probably more real than any single answer someone could give you.
I spent thirty-some years teaching high school hockey and English, and I noticed that the kids who seemed happiest weren't chasing some grand cosmic purpose - they were the ones absorbed in what they were doing right then, whether that was nailing a play or finally understanding a poem they'd been stuck on. I think meaning is real enough, but it's something you build through attention and care rather than something you discover waiting for you.
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