The Quiet Heartbreak

The Loneliest Part Is Knowing They’re Right

One of the quietest heartbreaks of this era is how many people now say they’ll never come to America again. I understand it. Truly, I do. If I weren’t from here, I wouldn’t want to visit either. But I won’t lie. It hurts. I’ve spent my life in international work. I’ve walked vineyards in Burgundy. I’ve tasted with sommeliers in Zurich. I’ve sat at cramped tables in Alba, Berlin, and Copenhagen, talking shop with people who love food, wine, culture, and connection.

I’ve always been the American who welcomed. The one who said: Come visit. Stay with me. I’ll show you around. Now I hear the same thing, over and over, no matter where I go:

“We’re not coming.”

“We don’t feel safe there.”

“We hate what your country has become.”

And they’re right. They’re right about the guns. They’re right about the cops. They’re right about the cruelty, the chaos, the collapse. But here’s the part that lands like a gut punch: the people responsible for all of this are a minority. A loud, vicious, well-funded, power-hoarding minority, but still, a minority.

They poisoned the well. They made the rest of us drink from it. Now we live with the sickness, and the shame, and the silence of a world that once knocked on our door. The hardest thing isn’t just what’s been done, it’s realizing how many people around the world think it was done in our name.

Not Patriotism—Hospitality

This has nothing to do with patriotism or national pride. What’s breaking feels deeper than that. It’s about how a country once known for its openness has turned cold. It’s about hospitality, the loss of it, the grief of watching it die. It’s about the heartbreak of being seen as unwelcoming. Of being associated with a cruelty you never chose, never condoned, and have spent years trying to fight. Because you know what Americans are, at our best? Hospitable.

We pick you up from the airport. We cook for you. We pour you a glass. We drive you to the canyons, the coast, the weird diner in the middle of nowhere. We show you what we love. The overlook at dusk. The back booth at the barbecue joint. The jazz spot with no sign out front.

That’s what kills me. I still want to say, “Come visit.” But now, when someone asks if they should, I pause. I hesitate. I wince. Because I know what they’ll see if they come. And I know they won’t come.

The Emotional Exile

If you’ve ever wondered what it feels like to watch your country rot while you’re still trying to make it beautiful for others, this is what it feels like. You’re still setting the table. But the house is on fire. You’re still trying to welcome. But the welcome mat is soaked in blood. They captured the courts. They hijacked the Senate and the House. They terrorized the schools. They brought back the ugliness we thought we’d buried.

And now, they’ve taken the presidency again. And somehow, the hardest part is the misrecognition.

The Hardest Part

The hardest part is being mistaken for them. Being lumped in. Being treated like part of the sickness, when all you’ve done is try to keep something human alive.

I get why people stay away. I’m not asking them to come. But I am asking one thing. Don’t mistake them for us. There are still Americans who believe in welcome. In beauty. In kindness. In the simple, grounding joy of pouring a stranger a glass and saying, “I’m glad you’re here.”

And if the day ever comes when you do decide to return, we’ll still be here. Ready to open the door. Ready to set the table. Ready to remind you what this country was supposed to feel like.

Not great. Not proud. Just human. Just warm. Just alive.