Damp. Musty. Dank. Earthy. All perfect words to describe the olfactory overload I experienced cracking open my mom’s old photo albums this week. As I sat there flipping through the worn and faded pages with such ferocity, trying as hard as I could to memorize the uninhibited joy I saw staring back at me, I realized how little we really know our parents.

I’m not one of those people who needs things sugarcoated. Even as a kid, I wanted you to shoot it to me straight, which sounds absolutely ridiculous because it’s so out of the norm for children, but for me it was true.