You Are Not Too Much

The silence in this room feels heavy, like everyone is holding their breath around you. You are convinced that your pain is a weight they are too polite to ask you to set down.

That if you spoke, they would flinch. That your presence is a burden they endure with thin smiles.

But listen—there is a story of a man who was paralyzed, carried by four friends through a roof because the door was blocked. He did not apologize for the debris.

He did not whisper sorry for the disruption. When he landed at the feet of the light, he was not met with resentment.

He was met with peace. The light does not calculate the cost of your care.

It does not keep a ledger of how much you take versus how much you give. You are not a drain on the people who love you.

You are the very reason they get to practice the only thing that matters. The panic tells you to shrink.

To disappear. To make yourself small enough to be invisible.

But the truth is softer. You are allowed to take up space.

You are allowed to need. The light is not tired of you.

It is kneeling beside you right now, in the darkest hour, holding the weight you think you must carry alone. You are not too much.

You are exactly enough.