If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?

Honestly, there are a lot of not great places in the world. Geographically, I like where I live. The weather is good most of the year. I can grow the things I want to in my yard. My house and yard are a good size for my life.

That said, over the last decade I have thought about moving to Canada, New Zealand, and Ireland. My partner has pushed the Ireland thing. After Germany figuring out how to make solar panels look like regular glass, I could see myself moving there.

Growing up in the US, you are told a lot of things about your country. That it is such a great place to live because of our freedoms and how advanced we are compared to much of the world. For the last decade, it does not feel like the idea we were sold as children.

Our humanitarian efforts used to be a proud thing that would be shared on television all the time. The idea of equality for all and what our forefathers fought for.

I have had mixed feelings about our country since college because in a lot of areas we were definitely not practicing what we preached. However, if you look at the polls about what people actually think about these bigoted things, most people agree that bigotry in any form is bad. Yet our government is constantly trying to pretend that we are cool with bigotry. It is honestly, nauseating.

As a child, I thought I grew up in a country where you would not be killed on the street for stating your beliefs. I thought the Supreme Court believed on the ideals that we were based on, not getting rich. I believed in the “give me your tired, hungry masses yearning to break free.” I keep thinking we are better than this and every day I get proved wrong.

I am one of the people who wonders if our democracy is going to fall at the next presidential election. It feels like it. What the Supreme Court has done. All the state governments and their gerrymandering. The electoral college that still exists for some reason. The complete lack of accountability in the Oval Office.

I want to live somewhere that I do not have to be embarrassed to be from on a daily basis. I want to feel good about my government. I want to feel safe. I want my children to be safe. I want everyone to be safe. Every single person. America is a country of immigrants that we stole from the Native Americans. I want us to acknowledge when we have messed up and try to fix things. I do not want children locked up because their parents were not born here. I do not want their parents locked up. We have protocols. There is a system in place. As long as they are following the system, they should not be locked up. I hate that we have lists of states that are unsafe for a group of people. It is absolutely horrible and disgusting that it is true. Some states are absolutely terrifying for large groups of people.

I want the country I heard stories about back. I want us to stand on the principles that we once held true. I want everyone to be able to walk down the street and not be killed, harassed, or run out of town. I want to wake up and be proud of my country again. I want principled people in charge. I want the fundamentals that everyone quotes to actually matter again. I want us to be a melting pot of cultures. I want us to be able to say we are wrong and fix our mistakes. I want to help people less fortunate than ourselves.

If we followed what the majority wanted, we would not be where we are right now. Heartbroken, disillusioned, and wanting to leave.