Growing up, my religious identity was primarily one of confusion. Nothing was pushed on me; nothing was overtly offered.

The youngest boy in an Indian family has a good life. Growing up in a matriarchal family where my Indian mom's culture was dominant, I experienced this first hand.

A protective self-narrative during conflict and duress sometimes obscures us from seeing the worst in ourselves. When the self-sustaining haze lifts after that conflict has subsided, we may recognize in ourselves the flaws the other saw in us at the time that we didn't have the emotional bandwidth to examine in the moment.

Sometimes, to move into the future, you must go back the past.