The first time the state came after me — In 2004 I owned a small business in Portland and couldn't get affordable workers' comp. My only option was SAIF, the state-created insurer, which stuck me in its "high risk" pool even though nothing about my business was high risk. So when a campaign formed to abolish SAIF, I signed on. I became one of its faces, a small business owner in the TV ads. Measure 38 failed and life and work went on. Then an unsigned, typewritten letter showed up in my business's mailbox with no postage, my name misspelled exactly the way SAIF spelled it filled with vague threats. Next came SAIF's first-ever audit of my business. They found nothing. Then they reclassified my business and raised my premium 900 percent, from $700 a year to $7,000. I didn't fund that campaign. Liberty Mutual did. I had no money and no power. I was the weakest link, and yet the state went after me anyway. I sold my business shortly after and made myself small. Twenty years later, I'm fighting another battle because of reporting on a state approved agenda. You’d think I’d learn, but no. I'm also working on a few stories about how this state handles things that are supposed to be beyond question, and I know what kind of attention that brings. I don't feel safe. I don't even know what that would feel like anymore. I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop. The state has a myriad of ways to ruin a life, and I've watched several friends go through it privately. It's horrifying to watch. I'm ready for a break, a long one, somewhere I feel safe, surrounded by people who have my back.