I’m sorry – for your losses. No, thank you – for refreshed perspective on values. Asking “who am I?” is one of the most daunting doors to open, not because it’s hard to answer, but because inquiry and curiosity are artforms of courage. I don’t know if I’m American anymore, and I mean “I don’t know.” I don’t mean “I’m not.” A crisis is a reckoning, and loss is not the guaranteed outcome; we can win, collectively. The beauty of the American dream is perhaps only known to outsiders. Once you’re inside it’s a nightmare, and once you’re outside it’s an epiphany that “hard work pays off” has also perpetuated some people working hard and other people getting the pay off and increasingly few people in between. And if you’ve never been outside, you might not see that it’s a dream; you might not know whether you’re fighting demons or chasing unicorns; you might not see that reality is part beauty, part shame, and part not knowing. And having all okay for one is not the same as okay for all. What is the American dream? Is it a dream if you lived it without ever consciously noticing? Dreaming happens, and knowing what I dream is called waking up. This is my wake up call, to myself.

I’m sorry that we let ourselves believe the idea for so long that we were the greatest country on earth, not because we’re not great, but because there are so many measures and lifting oneself up doesn’t mean – doesn’t have to mean – putting others down. I’m sorry that our President doesn’t demonstrate this belief. No one wins if 51% feel validated and 49% feel shame, because we’re one body. I believe integrity is presenting things as they truly are, and sometimes that means saying “I could use some support.” Sometimes integrity means acknowledging “I’m not where I hoped I would be at this point.” Dear America, I acknowledge that you are hurt and you have suffered, and this life is not the one that you always dreamed. This acknowledgement is when we can begin to heal. We don’t need to hide from our humanity, which the delineation of self from society inherently means we miscalculate. Recovery from miscalculation comes far easier when we re-assess the whole picture. We can adjust the journey to the goal without changing the goal itself. Taking steps backward or sideways often gives us the strength to step forward. If it’s not moving, don’t force it. If it doesn’t run, don’t chase it. If it’s not wet, don’t wring it out. Build her wheels. Teach him to walk. Collect some water, or wait for the rain. You know: gardens grow where seeds are watered. And we have Earth, seeds, and water, and the intelligence to grow back more sustainably, more responsibly.

I’m sorry – that you’ve pulled from the garden for so long without watering. We stopped visiting. We depended on labor without listening to their warnings. We’re tired. The plants are sick. The inputs dried up before the outputs, and the supply chain is so long that we didn’t notice, I think. And now… what does forward look like?

Rest. Nutrition. Trauma. Healing. Revitalization. Investment. Paying the hard workers, more than “enough.” Enough is enough, but yesterday’s enough is not today’s enough.

The last straw was when a stranger spoke about dentistry in a presentation at work: “Germans have had the Krankenkasse (public health insurance system) for decades, and Americans have had… nothing.” The pain came in the form of truth, realizing that both the red pill and the blue pill encapsulate a hard reality that the past is insufficient. With the blinds and shutters closed for months, I open my eyes to understand I’ve been tossing shit into my neighbors’ lawns. It’s not just adversely affecting their lives. I’m poisoning the hand that feeds me, and the very ground I stand on. Love my neighbor as my… selfishness is directly tied to selflessness, and we’re communal beings, responsible for ensuring the safety of more than our own self-selected. To be human is to accept the question of our own values, and exploring the question means paying a visit to the neighbor’s farm, knocking on their front door, giving out not a hand, but a heart.

The connection of ourselves emotionally helps us see that while skin is a barrier to protect us from the outside world, it is not something that we need to fear separating or distinguishing us. I can feel with my heart what I can’t see with my eyes. I listen with my body what I can’t feel with my hands. We are all sensory, yet so often sensitized to fear one another. We neglect to acknowledge that fear is the very ground that we stand on, what connects us, that our feet walk on one body of land. Nike both brings us together and keeps us apart.

I look at my finances – a simple graph, showing the net worth of my combined savings and investments over time. Thank you, Trump, for building the economy. But, no, thank you. This is not the economy. I opt out of a system that doesn’t work for the majority. Nor the minority. If I gain and the majority loses, there is no winner. (Hello, electoral college.) We can compete without being enemies. We can gain trust and let go of control. We can recognize that what’s in our pockets speaks nothing of what’s in our heart. Yes, we need money in our pockets, but it’s worth far more when we choose where to put it with our hearts. Should I buy my own bread, build my own bakery, or teach my neighbor how to bake as they reap the wealth of their own wheat? There is no answer, but there is the question. Dear America, what do I value?