I should have left. We all should have left. When they came for the vulnerable, when they eroded our rights, when they traded compassion for profit. But I stayed, clinging to the tattered remnants of a once-shared hope, waiting for someone else to rise and defend the values we held dear. And then I realized: it had to be me. It had to be us. From the ashes of that shattered hope, I rise, determined to forge a new path, a future where we stand united against the forces that seek to divide and conquer. This is my story, a story of resilience, of fighting back, of refusing to be silenced. Maybe I should have left when I felt disenfranchised by a society that gives itself the privilege to question my identity, when they took it upon themselves to dictate who I should be, how I should love, what I should believe. Maybe I should have left when the success higher education knowledge brings wasn’t a foregone conclusion because no one in my family had gone to college, and my parents didn’t think they had an obligation to pay for my future; because I was from a lower socioeconomic status than my classmates, I didn’t have friends. Maybe I should have left when I started getting stressed out about money even though I was working multiple jobs, riddled with anxiety about pulling my weight as a worker bee. I should have left when I used drugs to feel better about myself because our healthcare system doesn’t recognize—let alone provide therapy for—the many problems others impose on us. And then I certainly should have left when I was coldly fired for exercising what I was assured was my federally protected right to medical leave. But I fought back against so many broken systems—from “justice” to government bureaucracy to the unemployment “insurance” I’d contributed to. I had to scrape by just to find a lawyer better than the first who lowballed an opening settlement offer, whose fees would have left me with less than the amount of paid leave I was granted initially. But the second lawyer epitomized the self-interested evil that has become the United States legal profession and still couldn’t bother to spell my name correctly on filings. I became so acrimonious at her dismissive and uncaring attitude that I dared her with a lawsuit for unilaterally terminating our client relationship without cause. And then, as these things do, when my 21-year relationship ended, I should have left, recognizing a hidden opportunity. But I stayed in the country of my birth and went to the only place I could think of where I might find happiness (in the US): San Francisco. But then I certainly should have left when the cable-car Victorian fantasy of freedom and love shattered into a thousand lies about entrenched power structures and the gullibility of the electorate to believe anything instead of doing something. And I certainly should have left running immediately when illogical greed unjustly evicted me over $132 with false allegations and then countersued me for taking my claims to court and threatened me with money judgments to silence me. Did I mention a restraining order against me used as a bargaining chip by the landlord’s counsel Nixon Peabody? I realized drugs weren’t the answer to any problems and was still shamed into questioning my trust and generosity given my lack of any income for over a year. While Illinois unemployment withheld payments claiming it was a safety measure because I was an out-of-state claimant (a blatant violation of the US Constitution by the way), San Francisco also threatened me with arrest for asserting my eligibility for a cash welfare benefit. Social security denied my disability claiming that I had not sent in paperwork they acknowledged receiving on the same denial. My thoughts briefly shifted to a greater good in elevating my non-profit to a co-housing provider, but good luck trying to get anyone interested in both saving money on service delivery costs and a shared help model instead of the authoritarianism that they like to “help” poor people with. So then I decided to leave but couldn’t muster the courage. I didn’t believe in myself until I did, and then on the eve of my sudden departure—ecstatic to share my pending happiness with the very few people who have brought it to me—I found out that an acquaintance was found dead, alone, in his apartment. He called me unexpectedly just a week before, possibly alone and wanting to talk. And when no one was there… When there was no one left but me to believe in, I mustered the courage, though it seemed effortless in a way I never imagined. I left. And I am never coming back to that hell whose name is printed all over my passport as spirited instigations of Liberty and freedom. They are none such. The rest of the world knows that too, and so do I now. Just for comic relief, I should have seen how topsy-turvy American values are at the San Francisco general hospital that refused to honor my legal name change and update their records because I had not filled out a form, and even when I did fill out the form and filed a grievance for failing to show basic respect to me as a person. The health record system surely made some executive rich, but it failed again and again to get me my mental health medication. In one case, they sent it to a Walgreens in Sacramento. I was understandably frustrated and agitated at the incompetence of a pharmacy chain that seems not to have visibility into their other stores. However, managers at two different stores were trigger-happy to threaten police action. And I assure you this has not been the first time that the facade of power uses such threats of intimidation. Never mind that California law requires licensed pharmacies to dispense prescribed medications, and throwing a temper tantrum is not an excuse to deny me my health care. But like the Wizard of Oz, Weekend at Bernie’s, the city of Venice, and so many other facades, they made a reliably pious virtue-signaling show of asking what my preferred pronouns are. I am not looking back. But I am moving forward, stronger and more determined than ever. I have learned that the only person I can truly rely on is myself, and that self-belief is the most powerful weapon against adversity. ![[PXL_20250128_101932964.MP.jpg]]