I am the lens of this book because these are the experiences I can examine from the inside. That access is partial. Memory leaves gaps. Motives are mixed. Sometimes I can describe what I did more confidently than why I did it. Sometimes another person's presence changed my life without giving me ownership of that person's interior life.

The people in these pages are not exhibits offered to prove my theory. Their words belong to them. Their choices remain their own. I can tell the part of a shared story that I lived and describe what I came to see in it. I cannot turn proximity into permission, assume agreement, or make someone I love carry the burden of resolving me.

That is especially important because this is not a story told from the far side of transformation.

I remain capable of defensiveness, misplaced loyalty, selfish desire, overwork, harsh judgment, and confusing usefulness with worth. Understanding a pattern does not mean I have escaped it. Writing about an obligation does not fulfill it. Prayer does not substitute for repair. Love does not erase another person's agency. Explanation is not exoneration.