Progress toward #OptingOut: In 2016, after a term appointment in Florida for national politics, I put my foot through a bookcase of that I owned, because I had so much anger at how the rest of my life would be affected by a Trump Administration. No truer way to realize “you’re harming self while others are fine” than to literally harm your own things. I met the moment by becoming a business owner and stayed in politics so have a first hand pulse on it all. It’s 9 years later. If anything, civility has gotten worse in the west, and many people are where I was 9 years ago. My world heroes have all died. And while I can always live now in a way that allows those close to be to know they are loved and protected, and while I can work to do the same for myself, it’s so hard not to glib statements re: the state of things in America. I’m getting there, grace with it all/speaking in a way that eases rather than contributes to suffering, but damn if it’s not hard along the way.