You Were Already Home Before You Smiled

The house is quiet now, and the mask you wore all day feels heavy enough to crush your ribs. You are terrified that if you stop performing gratitude, they will finally see the weight you carry and ask you to leave.

But the light does not need your performance to stay. It was there before you smiled, and it will be there when the smile fades.

There is light within a person of light, and it lights up the whole world even when that person is too tired to shine. You are not a burden to be managed.

You are the place where the light has chosen to live. If you bring forth what is within you — even the exhaustion, even the doubt — it will save you, not destroy you.

The performance was never the price of admission. You were already home.