Lent 2026 · Day 13: Never Say Never. Goodbye and Hello, Again!

I ran for office three times. And I lost three times. Let’s talk about it.

And I want to be clear about something.

I’m not ashamed that I lost.

Not even a little.

Because what I did takes a kind of courage most people never have to summon in their lives. I put my name on a ballot. I stood in front of the community and said, “Here I am. Judge me. Decide if I’m worthy of your trust. If I'm good enough.”

And they did.

Three times.

They looked at me and decided I wasn’t what they wanted.

That’s not easy to sit with. Anyone who tells you it is either hasn’t done it or isn’t being honest.

But I’m still proud of myself.

Because I ran.

I put myself in the Arena.

I believed people when they said they wanted something different. I believed that if we talked honestly about inequity, about systems, about policy, that voters would choose the future they said they wanted.

I believed in the community.

Over and over again.

And yes, it hurt to be disappointed by that belief.

Not once.

Three times.

There comes a point where you start to understand something about the place you’re fighting for.

Sometimes the community you’re trying to help simply isn’t ready for the change you’re offering.

And that realization can break your heart a little.

Eventually it broke mine enough that I had to step away.

I joke sometimes that I “broke up with Rochester and ran away.”

But there’s truth in that joke.

Because it’s hard to keep pouring your energy, your time, your hope into a place that keeps telling you, in one way or another, that what you’re offering isn’t what it wants.

That doesn’t mean the work was wasted.

It just means the timing wasn’t right.

And sometimes loving a place means recognizing when you need distance from it.

In 2020 the world cracked open.

COVID-19 exposed just how fragile our systems really are. Then the murder of George Floyd forced this country to confront what Black and brown communities have been saying forever: the system was never broken. It was built this way.

And like a lot of people, I felt like I couldn’t just sit there and do nothing while all of this was happening around me.

By that point I had already spent nearly ten years working in nonprofits, including seven years at the Diversity Council. My work brought me into rooms with city officials, county leaders, school boards, and businesses trying to address disparities in employment, health outcomes, education, and civic engagement.

We had the conversations. We presented the data. We talked about race and racism and inequity in ways that made people uncomfortable.

Because the truth is those conversations should make people uncomfortable.

Sometimes we made progress.

But I also saw something else that people who haven’t done this work don’t always understand.

Pushback.

The kind that smiles politely in meetings and then quietly pulls the funding later. The kind that praises equity publicly but slows it down privately. The kind that listens, nods, forms another committee, writes another report, and somehow nothing actually changes.

After a while it became painfully obvious that nonprofits can start conversations, but real systemic change happens where power actually lives.

Policy.

Budgets.

Leadership.

So I decided if I wanted to see real change, I needed to step into that space myself. If we were going to have hard conversations someone had to talk about it. Cause the people who were running were not going to. So, I forced them to. Cause I showed up and I said the words. Defund the police.

I ran for office.

Three times.

And I lost.

Three times.

Let’s be honest about something, because people like to rewrite these stories afterward and pretend the outcome was about qualifications.

I was qualified.

I had the education, the experience, and nearly a decade of work in this community trying to make it more equitable. I understood the issues and the systems involved probably better than most people who step into local politics.

That wasn’t the problem.

The problem was that I was not a candidate people trusted to maintain the status quo.

Because I wasn’t going to.

I ran because I wanted to create real systemic change through policy that benefited everyday people, not the institutions and business leaders who were already doing just fine.

Instead, voters chose the safer option. The familiar option. The candidate who would manage the system exactly the way it had always been managed. The old white retired pastor who baked bread.

And to be fair, those men did a perfectly fine job when they were in office. And still are in office. Being toast. Bland not even buttered toast. Because everyone loves toast. It will always just be toast.

But fundamentally nothing changed.

The same disparities remained.

The same conversations kept happening.

The same communities were still waiting for the promises of equity and inclusion to mean something beyond words.

And the longer I sat with that reality, the more honest I had to become about something.

Most communities say they want change.

But what they actually want is stability that feels like progress.

Real change is disruptive. It shifts power. It forces people to confront uncomfortable truths about who benefits and who doesn’t.

And a lot of people would rather protect a system they know is unfair than risk losing the comfort it provides them. Even if it's sucking the life out of them.

There’s another thing I learned along the way that still surprises me.

People often assume that because I smile easily, because I try to treat people with kindness and humor, that I somehow don’t understand what is happening around me.

As if kindness means naïveté.

As if being pleasant means you’re not paying attention.

But I have always been watching. Listening. Observing how systems work, how decisions get made, who benefits, who doesn’t.

That’s the part people consistently underestimate.

And honestly, that underestimation has always been a little insulting.

I don’t go around announcing how intelligent I am. That kind of performance is boring.

My personality has always been something else entirely.

I’m queer. I’m funny.

I’m weird. I'm steady.

I like people. Except when I don't.

I like learning. And I like sharing knowledge.

I’ve never believed in gatekeeping what I know.

But here’s the part people miss when they underestimate me.

I’m actually pretty damn impressive.

Even when my life is falling apart, I still find a way to get things done. When resources disappear, when doors close, when the path forward isn’t obvious, I figure it out.

I always do.

Because the world has always expected me to be three times better than everyone else just to be considered equal.

Three times sharper.

Three times more prepared.

Three times more resilient.

And even then, sometimes that still isn’t enough.

That’s a reality a lot of people in this country understand very well. If you want to survive in systems that weren’t designed with you in mind, “good enough” is rarely good enough. You have to be exceptional just to stay in the room.

So when people underestimate me, when they assume kindness means weakness or that a smile means I’m not paying attention, I mostly just let them believe it. Because eventually the truth shows itself anyway.

And when it does, it tends to surprise people.

And here’s the part that really sits heavy with me.

People spend a lot of time complaining about how broken everything is. They rant about how nothing works anymore, how the system is failing, how everything feels like a dumpster fire.

And then they turn around and vote for the same people who built the system in the first place.

Over and over again.

The same leadership class.

The same policies.

The same priorities that keep funneling benefits upward while everyone else is told to wait their turn.

People say they want something different.

But when the moment comes to choose something different, they reach for the familiar option every time. It's mostly old white dudes, but other times it's safe boring suburban moms.

They keep hoping that maybe this one will be different.

They won’t.

They never are.

They’re just different version of the same thing.

And sometimes I hear that quote rattling around in my head:

If not you, who? If not now, when?

And I’ll be honest.

Sometimes I want to scream back:

Why does it always have to be me?

Why do the people who see the problem feel responsible for fixing it while everyone else keeps choosing the same leaders who created the mess in the first place?

At some point we all have to confront something uncomfortable.

You can’t complain about the system while continuing to protect the people who built it (Hello, p-do-file politicians). 😳

Lent is supposed to be a season of honesty.

So here is mine.

2022 was the last time I ran for office.

After that, I was done.

I ran off to the desert of KCMO and licked my wounds.

Someone once told me you shouldn’t go back to the place that harmed you.

But the truth is more complicated than that.

Because Rochester is also the place that believed in me when I was first starting my life.

It’s the place that showed up for me.

And later, when I needed to rebuild myself, it was also the place that helped heal me.

So maybe the lesson isn’t that places are good or bad.

Maybe the lesson is that communities are made of people.

And people are messy.

We are capable of building systems that harm each other.

And we are also capable of building something better.

Which means the uncomfortable truth is this:

We are the problem.

And we are the solution.

We are the miracle.

That’s the work.

And Lent is as good a time as any to begin again.

Lenten Reflection

“But everything exposed by the light becomes visible... and everything that is illuminated becomes a light.” — Ephesians 5:13

Lent is not a season for polite lies.

It’s the season where you stop pretending you don’t see what you see.

Where you name the thing. The pattern. The cowardice. The comfort people confuse for peace. The “we want change” that turns into “not like that” the minute change gets real and might cost someone something.

A lot of people want resurrection without crucifixion. They want a better world without giving up their place in the current one. They want the miracle, but they don’t want to be the ones holding the bucket.

But this is the part Lent keeps dragging us back to: repentance is not a vibe. It’s not guilt. It’s not posting the right thing. It’s turning around. It’s doing something different. It’s choosing the hard truth over the familiar lie, again and again, until you become someone who can actually live inside the future you keep claiming you want.

I don’t know what Rochester will become. I don’t know what this country will become.

But I do know this: communities don’t change because people “mean well.” They change when people decide to stop protecting what’s killing them.

Take care of yourself. Take care of each other.

Everyone should run for office. I highly recommend it: https://www.rochestermn.gov/departments/city-clerk/elections/running-for-office?

The Minnesota Vikings haven't won a Super Bowl, but you still hope, pray, and believe one day they will. 🙏

#lentreflections2026 #hopefloats #LocalElections #VoteForChange