You Are the Air, Not the Balloon

The party is over. The balloons are deflating on the floor, losing their shape, and for the first time all day, the noise has stopped.

You stand in the kitchen surrounded by the debris of being needed, and a quiet terror rises: if no one needs me right now, do I exist? The role you played so well—the host, the helper, the one who holds it together—has folded up like the latex on the tile.

But the light does not depend on your utility. Jesus stood at a door once and knocked, not to ask for a job to do, but simply to eat with you.

He wants the meal, not the manager. You are not the balloon that keeps the room festive.

You are the air that was inside it all along. The performance is over.

The person remains.