My life has not been a bed of roses. It has been a constant struggle. Self sabotage, depression, drinking, arrogance, abuse, PTSD, Christian Nationalism and conspiratorial thinking brought on by stakeholders that were supposed to be my most trusted people. Add to this an insane worldly obsession with wanting to fix the bad political policy decisions that have led us… here… …and a greater obsession with taking personal responsibility for it all… Yet… I survived… …because I cut my losses.

The $47 administration has always been my worst nightmare. It is a product of the developing fascism dating back to the Nixon years when HMO’s became a thing, and recording your conversations… well Watergate. It accelerated when Reagan came to office. A Nation at Risk, privatizing governance, and corporate welfare while starving the education system in favor of product (test scores) rather than learning by doing (experience.)

In 2015 I began to slowly cut my losses with things that were making me unhealthy and self-destructive. It started with asking for help. My mental health was non-existent. I was essentially a man at constant work afraid to stop. Stopping led to bad decisions… When I received some mental health treatment, specifically anti-depressants, things started to change. It took three different medicine changes to find the right combination of compounds to enable me to see in color again and feel mostly rational. I cut my losses with years of self destruction. This included eliminating alcohol (easily done,) and reprocessing trauma through EMDR therapy (much more difficult.) It worked. I continue working at cutting those losses, because I still wrap myself up in taking responsibility for things I’m not responsible for… I think we Gen-X kids tend to do that. We eat everyone’s pain and suffering, because no one helped us deal with ours. Life has always been our hell…

2016 led to me cutting losses with a failed marriage. It also had me re-evaluate my priorities. Adjusting to a new life. Seeing my children as I was able. Struggling financially as I was in graduate school pursuing a doctorate in music education… futilely I might add. My research interest wasn’t music related. It was political policy related. I did not want to do political policy research as an educational administrator, I wanted to do it in a music educator role for advocacy purposes. My university did not want me to do that. I completely understood that and in the early spring of 2017 I cut my losses and left the PhD program at a Big 10 University. I hold zero grievances. This time of learning and reflection helped heal me emotionally and reframe my life path. I returned to teaching music after being out of a K-12 classroom for four years. I had taught community college as an adjunct for many years, but I found the work to be uninspiring with the exception of conducting band and choir.

In the winter of 2017 after settling into a new job, new home, and new community I cut my losses with my job in Dixon, IL. It was incredibly illogical to drive nearly two hours one way to conduct a band in a community I had zero connection with anymore geographically. I was losing touch with the local politics and I found the neoliberal economic policy the mayor (now state senator) was practicing with the city unethical and quite frankly a bit unlawful in its spin. I miss the job sometimes. I miss the people I served. I do not miss the hassle of the city politic. I’m always happy to see what they are doing now. Tom Scott (Steely Dan saxophonist, Blues Brothers saxophonist, LA Express, countless other groups) is going to be their guest artist this spring!!! I’m so happy for them.

I remarried in 2018, expanded my family considerably, but tragedy struck twice in 2019 with the death of my stepson from Budd-Chiari syndrome and the death of my father from glioblastoma. These deaths made 2019 forgetful and the scars held on emotionally through much of 2020. I just wasn’t the same. Work life balance is all I craved. Losing a ten year old child drives that home. Tinnitus had also started to affect my work as a band director. In the spring of 2020 I cut my losses as a band director during the height of the pandemic and found a new job teaching in Davenport, IA as a general music teacher in an elementary school. This has led to work life balance, and I’m enjoying this teaching move far more than I ever dreamed. The tinnitus is getting worse. I have it in both ears. I hear it when I dream now.

The pandemic led to all kinds of loss cutting. All of it political. My family is hard core conservative. Most of my family voted for 45. Their ignorance and bias always led to creative differences and discussions at the dining table or in the living room. They can’t see the whole story through their convinced simple narrative. Unfortunately that simple narrative crossed a line during the George Floyd riots and the Black Lives Matter Movement. The racist social media posts of one of these family members led to a social media block. Weeks later this developed into a complete block for this whole wing of the family. I do not tolerate racism or any suggestion that their hypocrisy is better than being inclusive. As of this writing I have not spoken to any of them in nearly six years. Unless I hear an apology, and how they have reflected upon their errors… I see no point in wasting my time on this cognitive dissonance. I cut my losses… I’m perfectly at peace with it.

I have also put greater distance between my uncle’s family for similar reasons. The exercised privilege and finger pointing is intolerable to me. Voting for the cess pool in the oval office just added to the “Intolerable.” Their “God” loving nationalism also makes me ill. The ignorance of reality is the greatest breaking point for me.

Now I have one more family member to cut losses with… Sadly, that will not happen until they pass away. My surviving parent is anything but a nurturer… kindness is a purchase… narcissistic self importance is a family trait… I exhibited some of that behavior when I was unhealthy mentally. You learn these things naturally as a child. You think it is normal. Everyone goes through this… or so you think. You are a child, the world is small. I picked up some healthy paranoia and conspiratorial thinking from this parent. I limit the contact and dialogue with them. Less is better in this situation. I’m glad I started cutting losses in 2015 with all of the cognitive crazy running through my life. Embracing health and balance… and avoidance… was the best thing I ever did. My life is better… I want to make life better for others…

My moral of this story if there is one: Find the family you can be yourself with. Just because the DNA is aligned doesn’t make you rooted as “family.” I have my wife, my kids, my grandchild, and a select group of friends that are my family. I don’t need the dissonance the others bring to my life. My love for them is sadly gone. How can love hate? In order for me to be healthy, I had to cut my losses.

Now my nation needs to cut the losses with the cult of MAGA. We need to keep resisting their insanity. The reporters need to continue asking questions that cause them to melt down and look unprofessional. Then they need to follow up with… Is that a yes? States need to withhold money to force the others into loss. They need us more than we need them. We need to stand tall… and be better… Then we need to punish their illegalities to the full extent of the law. With dignity and righteousness. It is time for my nation to cut its losses. If I can do it… we all can do it… make it so…