When Is It Too Late?

I've talked a little about this before, when is it too late to run? When will we look back and say, "we should have gone when..."

It's always the question when you are studying WWII in school right? Why did people stay? Why didn't they run? When people were being snatched off the street, or moved into ghettos why didn't they leave? Well, some tried. I mean an entire boat full of Jewish refugees tried to come to the USA (and Cuba, and Canada) and was turned away. But others didn't even try, they stayed. Until it was too late.

When is it too late? And why do people stay? It's a question I asked over and over growing up.

Now I have more answers. It's not all that easy to leave. It's complicated. Where do you go? What will it cost you? Like literally cost, dollarwise and figuratively cost like everything else?

We have friends who are for sure leaving. They have a few options on the table that they are working. They know it's time to go. For them it doesn't feel safe to be here anymore. We have other friends who are still in the contemplating leaving space. They've visited a few different places just to see if they could imagine living there. So far they haven't settled on a space.

We've talked about going, but Katie isn't ready to go just yet and we won't leave if she doesn't. And because Katie is trans it changes our list of places to go as well. Some places would be safe for Brent and I and not at all for her. And the whole point of leaving here is to get someplace safer for her.

But I worry. When will it be too late? And will it be too late? Because that's the other piece that keeps people (us included) from leaving. That thought that maybe, just maybe it won't be necessary. That maybe this fever will break and the world will stop being so insane. People will stop being snatched off the street by armed goons. The Meh Court will stop saying that nobody but straight, white, Christian, men with money have actual rights. Maybe it will be okay.

Because that's what we all want. We want it to be okay.

Running is a tough pill to swallow. Katie and Brent would both need to find jobs in a new place. We would have to sell two houses in a fucked market. We would need to work out the immigration process someplace that would take all of us. Unwinding from where you live is hard enough going from State to State, let alone leaving the country.

And, man, it fucking pisses me off to think about going. This is MY home. Being pushed out because of a political party that not only did I not vote for, the majority of people in my country didn't vote for, that is infuriating.

But will it be too late? Will we reach a point where we realize that we should have run? Brent and I talked about moving to Canada during the first Trump administration. We started looking into it and then stopped because it wasn't as easy as just packing up and going and then Biden was elected and we felt like we did the right thing. But now we both wish we would have just gone ahead and done it. Figured it out and gone. BC is lovely. Hell, even Toronto is gorgeous though winter is serious business there.

We aren't even a year into this administration and the destruction that has happened to our country, our systems, our security, our sense of who we are...it's mind boggling. I'm not sure how this ends. And I'm not sure if we should run, or if it's already too late.

It's a lot harder of a decision than it seemed like in 10th grade history class.