Most of our friends and family — either explicitly or subtly — implied that we were overreacting.
Some said it gently. Others said it defensively. A few online strangers said it angrily. But the message was consistent.
The most common refrain sounded something like this:
“It’s only four years.”
“He’s old. He’ll be gone soon.”
“Things will go back to normal.”
I understand why people say that. It’s comforting. It assumes stability. It assumes institutions are stronger than individuals.
But I’m not convinced we can be that certain.
For me, Trump was never the entire problem. He was a symptom — loud, destabilizing, and impossible to ignore — but still only a symptom.
Beneath that was something deeper: millions of people who knowingly chose him. An ideology gaining confidence. Cruelty becoming normalized. Democratic guardrails eroding. A Supreme Court reshaped for generations. Roe overturned. Protections quietly dismantled. Rights that once felt assumed suddenly conditional.
Even if he disappears tomorrow, those forces remain. And they will look for someone else — perhaps someone more disciplined, more strategic, less chaotic.
That’s not panic.
That’s pattern recognition.
Doubt Is Loud
Still, those conversations shook me.
When people I loved dismissed our concerns, fear crept in. I questioned our sanity. Maybe we were dramatic. Maybe we were letting anxiety steer the ship.
Stacey and I second-guessed ourselves more times than I can count.
Some nights we stared at spreadsheets thinking, This is impossible.
Other weeks we felt completely paralyzed by logistics.
At several points, we nearly convinced ourselves to stop trying altogether.
But we kept circling back to one question:
Even if we’re overreacting… what have we really lost?
If everything in the U.S. stabilizes, we will have gained an extraordinary experience. Our children will have lived abroad. We will have stretched ourselves. We will have tried something most Americans only dream about.
The risk of leaving felt tangible and finite.
Staying felt different — slower, cumulative, and impossible to measure.
That difference mattered.
The Real Reasons People Don’t Go
I understand why people who quietly “get it” don’t leave.
Money feels like the biggest barrier.
The 9–5 structure feels immovable.
Stability, benefits, retirement plans — all of it feels too risky to walk away from.
Then there’s judgment. Regret.
Missing birthdays, holidays, and the daily closeness of people you love.
That last one still hurts the most for me.
Leaving meant accepting that we would miss parts of the lives of people we care about deeply. It meant acknowledging that relationships might shift. It meant stepping away from the security of “what everybody does” and choosing uncertainty instead.
That isn’t impulsive.
It’s heavy.
If You Feel This Too
Maybe you’re reading this and thinking:
“I feel this.”
“I admire what you did.”
“I wish I could leave.”
“But I don’t think I could actually do it…”
I see you.
Because I was you.
For years, I watched other families move abroad and thought, That must be nice. I assumed they had more money. More courage. More flexibility. More something.
The truth? We didn’t feel ready. We didn’t feel brave. We didn’t feel certain.
We felt afraid.
Afraid of the financial risk.
Afraid of destabilizing our kids.
Afraid of dismantling everything we had built.
Afraid of being wrong.
More than once, we thought, This will never work.
What kept us going wasn’t confidence. It was curiosity.
We kept asking questions.
We kept researching.
We kept running the numbers.
We kept imagining something different.
Slowly — imperfectly — we found a path forward.
Not because we’re extraordinary.
Not because we’re reckless.
But because we kept moving one inch at a time.
There Is Another Way to Live
For most of my life, I believed there was only one script: go to school, get the job, buy the house, work the hours, squeeze life into the margins, hope the system holds.
There is another way to live. I didn’t fully believe that for most of my life. I thought there was one script: go to school, get the job, build the house, work the hours, squeeze life into the margins, hope the system holds. I wanted to write this post because I want to reach others like me who want so desperate to find a different way of life – away from the United States’ collapse into fascism. Away from school shootings, and mass shootings, and ICE, and anti- LGBTQ+ legislation, unstable military whims… It’s been about 7 months that we’ve lived here now. It’s not utopia. It’s not perfect. But it is undeniably better for us.
Here, the pace is slower.
Kids walk to school without lockdown drills.
Healthcare isn’t tied to employment.
Life feels less like bracing and more like breathing.
You Don’t Have to Decide Today
If people in your life think you’re overreacting, that doesn’t automatically make them wrong — or you unstable.
It simply means they’re measuring risk differently.
This blog isn’t here to convince anyone to leave the United States.
It’s here for the families quietly wondering if they should.
For the ones researching visas at midnight.
For the ones running numbers in secret.
For the ones who feel unsettled but can’t quite explain why.
For the ones who love their country but don’t feel protected by it.
You don’t have to have a plan yet.
If that’s you — stick around.
Ask questions.
Send messages.
Push back.
Challenge assumptions.
You don’t have to defend yourself to everyone.
And you don’t have to figure it out alone.
We didn’t think we could do this either.
Until we did.
And if you’re wondering too — you’re welcome here.
Let’s talk about it.
Send me a message. Leave a comment.
What’s holding you back?