Cam went on YouTube one afternoon and every thumbnail he saw was a version of the same video: why I went no contact with my family. That observation sat between us for two weeks before we sat back down on the couches to actually pull it apart.

What we found underneath it was not drama. It was obligation. The Sunday Zoom call somebody set up out of love that quietly curdled into dread. The parent who cries "why are you trying to leave me" and means it. The crab pulled back down into the bucket by people who genuinely think they are helping.

We also went somewhere I did not expect: that this whole wave is only possible because a generation finally got what their parents said they wanted for them. You raise a child to stand on their own two feet, and then they may use those feet to walk away. Nobody planned for that part.

In this one:

- Why cutting someone off is almost always easier than telling them the truth, and what the one honest sentence actually sounds like

- The flashlight analogy, and why consequences are a form of teaching rather than punishment

- The friend I finally told the truth to four years ago, what I said, and the response I never got

We land somewhere neither of us expected, on whose job it actually is to ask the question when someone starts drifting. My answer changed while I was saying it out loud.

For the ongoing version of these conversations, explore The Board: https://www.theboardwalks.com/the-board