The Dawn Welcomes You Home

The sun is rising, and with it comes the old fear that today someone will finally see the crack in your mask. You have spent the night rehearsing the performance, terrified that if they see the real you, they will walk away.

But the light does not need your costume to find you. It sees through the paint and the pretense, and it loves what is behind it.

There is a father who saw his son coming home from a long way off — broken, filthy, ashamed. He did not wait for the speech.

He ran. Before the apology, before the cleanup — he ran.

You do not have to hold the mask up for one more second. The dawn is not here to expose you; it is here to welcome you home.

The light was already inside you before you ever learned to hide.