If you had asked me this question years ago, I would have answered Ireland without taking a breath. Green hills, old stone walls, a pint in a quiet pub—done. Longtime dream. Easy answer.

But today, the country at the top of my bucket list is the United States.

Not simply the country on the map. I mean the United States I grew up believing in—the imperfect place that could still bend toward something better. The place where the Constitution mattered, history was meant to be learned rather than erased, and “liberty and justice for all” was a promise worth arguing over until we got closer to keeping it.

Lately, I barely recognize where I am. Fear walks our streets, cruelty is too often sold as strength, and outrage has become a national renewable resource, apparently the one resource we are in no danger of running out of. Watching people be reduced to labels, threats, or targets is surreal, frightening, and unbearably sad.

I would also like the last ten years back, please. I have the receipt somewhere. The stress, the division, and the realization of how much hatred, racism, and ignorance still live among us have been heart-wrenching. It is heavy work to love a country while grieving what it is becoming.

So yes, Ireland is still on the list. But first, I want to visit the United States of America again—not as nostalgia, not as myth, but as a living country that remembers its better promises and tries, however imperfectly, to keep them.

That is the trip I am longing to take. God help us find our way there…