The Impulse to Flee and The Imperative to Stay When Things Are Breaking Apart in America

Shards of glass are everywhere.

I've collected some of them below for us to reflect upon.

As you read them, I encourage you to ask yourself, What do I think of these shards? Do I pretend not notice them? Do I actually NOT notice them? Am I stepping right around them? Am I unaffected by them? Or are they making me bleed?

Don't be afraid. None of this is new information.

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In no particular order, the shards that I notice include:

• Cost of living outpacing wages and salaries

• Housing unattainable for many

• Impending climate catastrophe

• Epidemic of poor mental health

• Random gun massacres in civilian life

• Erosion of voting rights

• Erosion of a woman's right to control her body

• Gay and Trans folks' rights in peril

• White supremacy ideology emboldened

• Subversion of democracy to achieve political aims

• Minority rule entrenched in the Senate

• "Christian" ideology embedded in the laws of the land

• Oh, and a pandemic

There’s more. I’m sure you can add to my list. Please feel free to do so in the comments section.

Artist Stephanie McMillan

In the face of all this, I'll admit to you that I've felt helpless. Maybe at times you feel helpless, too.

I’d always been the kind of person who cared about people and rights at a broad level. I tried to do my part to make things better. But during the pandemic years, seeing all of these shards accumulating in larger piles on the ground around me made me afraid. I might have even been depressed for awhile – who knows.

Looking back on these past two+ years, I can see that my focus steadily narrowed as if I had blinders clamped over my eyes. Instead of thinking about everyone, and solutions, and America, it got to a point where all I could see in front of me were my own descendants situated among these shards of glass. If I squinted enough I could even make out the forms of future grandchildren, the literal embodiment of biological success. My thoughts began to narrow as well:

Where do we go?

It felt very primal. I began researching places in America that had my desired trifecta of fresh water, liberal politics, and diversity (oh and decent weather – one can hope!) and kept drawing blanks. More than once I googled How do you get a Canadian passport?

I began not behaving like myself.

I began not recognizing myself.

I think this is normal. In the face of huge threats, an impulse to LEAVE is an impulse to SURVIVE.

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It's late June 2022, a few days after the Supreme Court handed down its Dobbs decision which overturned Roe v. Wade. I'm in Dallas giving a keynote at an international conference of boys schools’ educators. As the conference opens, we're asked to rise for the national anthem of the United States.

I haven't stood for the anthem in quite some time. But I'm a guest. Paid to be there. Seated in the front row and soon to take the dais myself. I slowly pull myself up and out of my seat out of obligation and a concern for optics. I keep my arms at my side in a quiet refusal not to place my hand on my heart and pledge anything to anyone that feels like a lie. My self is in a shouting match with my self and bile swims around in my gut.

As man after man ascends the podium, I hear not a single mention of reproductive rights and of the responsibilities of both parties when unintended pregnancy takes place. I know the opposite would have happened was I about to present at a conference of girls schools’ educators. I twist in my own discomfort and decide, Well then I'll weave it into my talk. But I don't. I fail. I don't know how to say something without spewing like the most torrential of volcanoes. I don't want to be the woman who came to Texas from California and fell apart.

_____

This feeling of helplessness, this impulse to tiptoe around these shards of our brokenness, to retreat from them, to hide, and perhaps even to flee makes me sad. Worried. Sometimes it even makes me feel sick. Because if those of us who have privilege – who are educated, who have money, who enjoy access to opportunity and to decision-makers – are looking for exit strategies and passports in furtherance of getting the hell out of Dodge, we won't be helping anyone but ourselves and our descendants.

I think I’ve realized: Precisely because I'm someone who maybe COULD leave, I SHOULDN'T.

And I don't want to just stay and sit here and play music as the Titanic sinks. Not thinking about it, doing nothing about it is not an option. This isn't the America you or I wanted but it's the one we're now inhabiting. It's time to pick up the shards, repair, and rebuild.

I've also realized that life – living – isn't about running and hiding. Life and living are about staying and fighting not just for yourself, but for everything you care about.

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Stay tuned for what I'm going to do with all of this. And, I'm curious to know your thoughts? Which shards most concern you? Have you been in flight mode, or freeze mode, or fight mode? Are you thinking about how to make things better? If so, what might you do?

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🧐 If you missed my post about how I was estranged from a neighbor and I thought it was their fault but came to realize it was maybe kinda also mine, check it out here. Or about how Top Gun: Maverick is a love letter to GenX, check it out here. Or about how I fought my health insurance company (and lost) check that out here.

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