Walking Away

It was something that I never expected that I'd ever hear from DW: "I don't want to, and it would hurt, but I'm prepared to walk away from it all."

Last week, I pulled the plug on the last of my Meta accounts, Instagram. I had already said goodbye to Facebook (including its Messenger service), Threads, and WhatsApp.

Instagram was the hardest but in truth, I haven't actually missed it yet. I've been adding photos to my old Flickr account and I've been sharing photos on Bluesky.

I'm good.

On Friday, I officially closed my Amazon account, ditching Prime Video in the process. And on the weekend, DW and I took our time in grocery shopping, making sure that nothing that went into our cart was American.

We're doing our best to do our part. Shop Canadian!

Last year, we started making plans for our next big vacation—months before our trip to Mexico, last December. It'll be our first family vacation in about seven years, and everyone is keen.

I'm not sure I'm ready to share our destination yet: stay tuned. Or not, depending on how things go.

While we're not going to the United States (I vowed, in 2016, that I was done with that country), we do have to change planes in an American city, and both DW and I are on edge. It's a Red state.

I haven't been able to help myself. I've been critical of the U.S. and haven't held back about my thoughts of the felon in the White House. DW has asked me to be guarded on social media but I haven't done a very good job, especially since this weekend, when the Orange Asshole slapped a stupid tarriff on Canadian goods entering the States.

He's petty and vindictive, and DW is worried about what could happen to Canadians who go through security at American airports.

I'm hoping that if things start to escalate before our trip (we still have until May), the Canadian government will declare the U.S. to be a risk and announce a travel advisory. And, in doing so, our airline will divert us to another transfer point, outside of the States.

But the other day, DW said something that caught me by surprise: "I'm prepared to walk away from it all." Meaning, she'd cancel our trip, resulting in the loss of thousands of non-refundable dollars.

I'm not ready to do that yet but we'll consider it as a last resort. We're watching the dismantling of American democracy, and we don't want to be anywhere near it when that happens.

Unfortunately, our country is too close for comfort.