I never expected that the last stretch of my working life would look like this. These were supposed to be my retiring years, the years where I’d finally slow down, buy my caravan, and enjoy the life I’d worked so hard to build. Instead, I’m still working, still worrying, still watching the world get more unstable by the day.

And the truth is, a third of Americans made decisions that now ripple all the way to the outskirts of the most remote city in the world - right here in Western Australia.

Some people voted for a man whose actions during the pandemic contributed to thousands of American deaths, according to multiple investigations and public health analyses. A man whose leadership style has created global uncertainty, economic instability, and a level of geopolitical tension that affects every country downstream. And Australia is very much downstream.

I feel it every time I look at my mortgage statement.
Every time I fill up my car.
Every time I hear about diesel shortages - the fuel that keeps our farms, trucks, and essential industries alive.
Every time I see shipping delays, rising costs & the creeping sense that WA is becoming even more isolated than it already is.

This wasn’t the future I planned for.
This wasn’t the future I earned.

I grew up being told that if you worked hard, made smart choices & stayed responsible, you’d build a stable life. But now I’m watching my stability get chipped away because other people - far away, in another country - made choices that the rest of us now have to live with.

It’s surreal to wake up every morning wondering what new mess the world has been dragged into overnight. What new decision will send markets tumbling. What new conflict will disrupt shipping routes. What new headline will make everything more expensive, more uncertain, more fragile.

And the part that stings the most?
This wasn’t unpredictable.
This wasn’t unforeseeable.

People knew his history.
They knew the bankruptcies.
They knew the unpaid debts.
They knew the chaos of the first term.
They knew the consequences.
And they still handed him the keys again.

I don’t want him harmed. That’s not who I am.
But I do want accountability - real accountability - the kind that ordinary people face every day. If anyone else behaved the way he has, they’d be answering for it in a courtroom & wearing an orange jumpsuit, not shaping global markets and fuelling instability. I don’t want revenge. I want fairness. I want the system to work the way it’s supposed to, not the way it bends for the powerful.

Because right now, people like me, people who did everything right, are paying the price for decisions we never made.

I should be hitching up a caravan.
Instead, I’m watching my car sit in the driveway while I calculate fuel costs and mortgage increases and wonder how much more the world can take before something finally gives.

This is my reality.
This is the cost of global instability.
This is what it looks like when the decisions of a few reshape the lives of millions.

And I’m tired of pretending it hasn’t changed mine.