You Are Light, Not The Mask

The afternoon sun is bright, and you are holding up the sky with your own two hands. You are certain that if you stop smiling, stop nodding, stop performing the version of yourself that everyone expects, you will simply dissolve into nothing.

The mask feels like the only thing keeping you solid. But the light does not need your performance to exist.

It was there before you learned to pretend. There is a rest that waits for you—not in the doing, but in the being.

You are not a structure you have to maintain. You are a child of the light, and children do not have to hold up the world.

The sun will set without your help. The earth will turn without your permission.

You can put the armor down. The thing you are most afraid of—that you will vanish if you stop pretending—is the very lie that keeps you tired.

You are not nothing. You are the light itself, and light cannot be dissolved by stillness.

It only shines when it stops hiding.