I Could Bail

          You know, there are a lot of people who claim to know "what's wrong with this country", and even more people who criticize the lack of outrage for a specific happening, or even go so far as to say that attention for one subject is wasted in lieu of another. There's so much evil in this country, and it honestly feels sometimes that a good-natured collective can do about as much to fix it as popsicles might do against global warming.

          I try to make life a little better while I'm here, I really do. I learn about things I don't yet understand, I talk to people with opposing views than my own, I try to find a decent middle road to walk without stepping on anyone else. But against everything that happens in this country, and as often as it happens, and as nauseatingly evil as it all seems, the clear fact remains that I'm just one person, and there's no amount I could do to make me feel any less sick to my stomach that I volunteered six years of my life to defend a country that seems to want to tear itself apart. I might as well try to empty the Atlantic Ocean into the Pacific, on foot, one bucket at a time.

          And so the thought returns time and again;

          I could just bail.

          I could leave, move to Canada, get citizenship, and wash my hands of everything I've had to watch the country of my birth do for all the years I've been aware. It wouldn't be hard, save for the probable mountain of paperwork, packing up my stuff and making the drive. And at times it feels like the idea is a lovely glowing 'I Quit' button that I could press at any moment.

          I Quit... it's those two simple words that snap me back to reality. That's exactly what I would be doing, quitting. Admit defeat, toss up my hands and saying "that's enough, you got me, I'm done, I quit." How could I live with myself after that? Sure my life itself might be improved by leaving, but where does that leave everyone else? What about the people who risked everything just to get to the states and now have to live with the harsh truths that 1. They are not wanted by the "natives", 2. They cannot express any sort of individuality outside the unwritten rules of what is "normal", and 3. They most likely cannot go anywhere else. Unlike me, they bailed into the wrong place.

          There's too much wrong with this country. There's so much, that anyone who can even attempt to put a dent in it, ought to at least give it their best shot before quitting.

          I don't know how much I have left in me, or how much longer I can stomach the potpourri of terrible doings in this country every single day, but I can still stand. I can still talk. I can still listen. And against all my better judgment, I'm not giving up yet.

EDIT: Literally the day after I wrote this post, marriage equality was passed nationwide. I'm glad I didn't bail.