I didn’t grow up believing this.
I grew up assuming it was just how the world worked.
There was never a moment where I chose this life. It was already there when I arrived, layered with history, reinforced by tradition, passed down through generations on both sides of my family. By the time I was old enough to form opinions, the answers were already in place.
I was born into it.
If you were too, you know how that feels.
As a kid, it didn’t feel restrictive. It felt normal. Ordered. Certain. There were clear expectations about how to live, how to behave, how to be good, not because they were written down, but because everyone around you already knew them. You learned early what was praised, what was questioned, and what was quietly corrected.
When you’re born into something like that, you don’t experience it as structure.
You experience it as reality.
You don’t question it, especially when faith, family, and belonging are all braided together. Especially when everyone you trust is reinforcing the same version of truth.
So for a long time, I didn’t know I was living inside a box. It wasn’t hidden. It just felt like the world.
I think I was about thirteen when I started noticing things that didn’t quite add up.
Not in a dramatic or rebellious way. Just small moments that made me pause and a hell of a lot of observing. Things I couldn’t fully reconcile with the certainty everyone else seemed so comfortable holding. Situations that didn’t line up cleanly with the values we talked about so confidently.
I noticed how questions were answered and which ones weren’t.
I noticed who was given grace, and who wasn’t.
I noticed how often obedience mattered more than understanding.
I noticed how certain rules didn’t seem to apply to certain people.
None of it was explosive. It was subtle. More like realizing there were lines you weren’t supposed to cross, even if no one ever said where they were.
For a while, I started wondering if something was wrong with me. How could I be the only one, on both sides of my family, who noticed the inconsistencies? Who felt the tension between what was preached and what was practiced?
And once you notice that, even quietly, you start watching everything a little differently.
That noticing stayed with me.
Over time, I learned which questions were safe and which ones shifted the atmosphere. I learned how to read reactions, pauses, tone. How to hold certain thoughts privately. How to stay inside the lines without completely disappearing.
Leaving didn’t happen all at once.
There wasn’t a dramatic break or a loud rejection. It happened slowly, over years, through accumulation. Through questions that didn’t go away. Through the growing realization that staying meant constantly editing myself in ways that felt less and less honest.
Leaving something you were born into can feel like rebellion, even when you know it’s the right move.
This newsletter is where I’m writing from now from the long after. From the place where memory feels both sharper and softer at the same time. From a life lived outside something that once defined everything.
I’m telling this story the way it actually unfolded: slowly, unevenly, and without neat conclusions.
If you were raised in a world where certainty was prized, obedience was spiritualized, and questioning came at a cost, this is for you.
You’re not alone.
This is where I’ll be writing from.
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Life Outside the Box