This episode details the painful decision and journey I made by agreeing to an arranged marriage in India at the age of 22, driven by a desperate desire to win back my father’s approval after the shame of having my child out of wedlock at age 17.

Despite my feelings of deep despair and having zero connection to the stranger procured by my family, I felt pressured by my parents, my relatives and the cultural expectations to proceed, ultimately viewing the marriage as a way to fix my family’s reputation.

This episode trails the moments before the proposal was presented, and follows the rapid and isolating trip to India that culminated into a bleak and distressing wedding day which solidified the realization; that I had just traded one nightmare for another.

LEARNING YOU IN THE SILENCE:It’s been eighteen years of silence, yet still I hearThe blueprint of your story now finally growing clearThe paradox of time has made me plainly seeThe woman that you were, not afar from meFor the eyes of my childhood were narrow, blind, and smallBut nearly twenty years later, I have come to see it allI know you better now than when you breathedDiscovered the quiet burdens you had bequeathedThe hidden trails of sorrows, joy and graceThat time and distance have now helped me to traceIn death, the complex truth of you unfurls, for now I behold your story to the worldNo longer just a shadow of my youth, I see you through both clarity and truthI tell the world the strength of who you wereThe vibrant, beating heart behind the blur, for eighteen years you haven't spoken a wordYet through my voice, your life will finally be heard

My forced exit from Illinois back to NY to be among the same people who despised my very being is where I found myself again.And while I was happy about reuniting with my child, I was also slowly suffocating again in my attempts to regroup and find a way to get as far away as possible from the life I had known thus far.With my older brothers’ upcoming nuptials and the first wedding in my immediate family quickly approaching, my parents were thrilled and equally hopeful they would somehow be reinstated to the same community that had exiled them a little over three years ago.I on the other hand, took another chance at finding true love just for it to be short-lived and overshadowed by the regrets of my unhappy past. Like a poisonous snake, the reminders of my shortcomings in life would wrap itself around and strangle every longing, hope and desire I had for a decent future.