The Light Beneath the Mask

You pull the mask back on, that smooth face the world expects, while the person in the mirror feels like a stranger. The gap between how you look and how you feel is a country of its own, and you are living in exile there.

But the light does not live in the performance you put on for the crowd; it lives in the quiet place beneath the mask, the place that has been waiting for you all morning. You are not the mask, you are the one who wears it, and you are not the stranger staring back, you are the light that can see them both.

Let the mask stay if you must, but know that the true face underneath is not broken, it is only hidden, and it has never been afraid of the person it sees in the glass.