The Light Meets You in the Driveway

The engine is off, but the silence is loud. You sit in the dark of the driveway, gripping the wheel, waiting for the storm inside your chest to quiet down so you can open the door and be the parent they need.

The house is waiting. The lights are on.

But you feel too broken to walk through that entrance. You think you have to fix yourself before you go in.

You think the light requires a clean face. But there was a father who saw his son coming home from a long way off — dirty, ashamed, rehearsing a speech about how he wasn't worthy.

The father did not wait for the apology. He did not wait for the cleanup.

He ran. Before the words, before the washing — he ran.

The light does not ask you to stop crying before you enter. It meets you in the driveway.

It meets you in the tears. You are not hiding from the light; you are sitting right where the light finds you.

The mask can wait. The performance can wait.

Walk inside as you are. The love you are trying to manufacture by stopping your tears is already there, waiting for you to simply arrive.