The Campaign I Walked Away From (And Why I'd Do It Again)

A year ago, I was running for City Council At-Large in Jacksonville. Today, I'm writing this from Albania.

If you've been following along with our 86 Days series, you know the broad strokes of how Moe and I ended up here. But there's a piece of our story I haven't told yet, and it's the piece that actually explains why this move means what it means to me. So let's back up. Way up.

Arlington, When It Was a Good Place to Grow Up

I'm a Jacksonville native. Born and raised. Arlington, specifically, back when Arlington was just... a good place to be a kid. Neighbors knew each other. Yards were mowed. You could ride your bike around the block without anyone thinking twice about it.

I left in 2001 to join the Army, right after 9/11. In 2008, I came back. I wanted to raise my daughter around family, around the place I grew up. It felt like coming home.

Watching the Creep

Over the years I lived in Mandarin, the Westside, the Beaches, Southside... different parts of town, different seasons of life. And in every single one of them, I started seeing the same thing.

The creep.

Sometimes it was slow. Sometimes it wasn't slow at all. Abandoned buildings sitting empty for years. Trash piling up on corners. Properties nobody seemed to be taking care of anymore. Crime. Homelessness. The kind of decline you can't really photograph in one picture, because it's not one thing, it's everything, slowly, all at once.

For years, I just... complained. I was sad about it. I'd talk about it with friends, shake my head, feel that familiar mix of frustration and helplessness that I think a lot of people feel about the place they love when it starts slipping.

From Complaining to Running

In 2025, I decided complaining wasn't going to cut it anymore.

I was already on the board of my neighborhood watch, trying to make the small, local changes that actually move the needle on a block-by-block level. But I wanted to go bigger. So I decided to run for City Council At-Large.

My platform was simple. I wanted Jacksonville to be safer, smarter, and stronger. I was grassroots through and through, no big PAC money, no political machine behind me, just me, a team of people who believed in the same things I did, and a whole lot of door-knocking.

Did I think I had a real chance of winning? Honestly... probably not. I knew the odds. But that wasn't really the point. I figured if I could get even a handful of people who felt ignored to feel like someone was actually listening, or get someone who'd given up on politics entirely to re-engage, even just a little... that was a win. That was the kind of difference I could actually make, win or lose.

Grassroots, Moe, and the Work of Hope

We had a small team. We were raising some money. I was doing events, getting out into the community, having real conversations with real people.

And Moe was right there with me the whole time. Helping get petitions signed. Showing up to rallies. Standing next to me at every event. He was, and is, my biggest supporter, and watching him believe in this as much as I did made the whole thing feel possible.

October 2025, Everything Changed

Then in October of 2025, Moe had a stroke.

And just like that, everything else stopped mattering.

My days weren't my own anymore. My thoughts weren't my own. Every hour was consumed with his care, his doctor appointments, getting through whatever the next twelve hours were going to require. I couldn't focus on a campaign. I couldn't focus on much of anything beyond Moe.

If you want the full story of that season, I wrote about it here

I waited. I kept hoping he'd wake up one day and just... be better. Suddenly, completely, back to normal. That's not how it works, though. That's not how any of this works.

Withdrawing Wasn't a Loss

By February, Moe and I had made a decision. We were moving to Albania. And that meant I had to withdraw from the race.

It was, at the same time, the hardest decision I've ever had to make and the easiest one.

Hardest, because I didn't want to let anyone down. I had volunteers who'd given their time. Donors who'd given their money. People who believed in me and in what I was trying to do, and walking away from that felt like walking away from them too.

But easiest, because my husband came first. There was never actually a choice to make. There was just a thing I needed to do, which was let go of one life so we could build another one.

By May 1st, we were in Albania.

What We Built Instead

I want to be really clear about something. This wasn't about not loving my city. It wasn't about not loving my country. Jacksonville is still home in a lot of ways, and probably always will be.

This was just the best decision for us, at this point in our lives.

And here's the thing I keep coming back to. The reasons I ran for city council in the first place haven't gone away. I still want to be part of something that helps people, that gives them hope, that shows up even when the odds aren't great. That instinct didn't disappear when we got on the plane. It just found a new shape.

Passports & Plans is, in a strange way, the same project. Different zip code, same heart. We're not knocking on doors anymore, but we're showing up, telling the truth about what it's like to leave everything behind and start over somewhere new, and hopefully giving someone out there the nudge they need to know it's possible.

If anything, running that campaign was good practice. It takes the same kind of stubborn, grassroots, try-anyway energy to pack up a life and move it across the world that it takes to run for office with no money and no machine behind you. Turns out I'd already been training for this for twenty years.

Was withdrawing the right call? Yes. Would I do it all again, knowing how it ends? Also yes.

Some things just aren't a competition.

This post is the companion piece to our 86 Days series finale on YouTube. If you haven't watched it yet, you can find it [here].