But so often for wives, the measure breaks when we ask for the scale to slide in our favor. - Lyz Lenz

It’s worth pointing out that while studies show that women do more housework than their male partners, this work goes largely unobserved by men, half of whom statistically perceive themselves as doing equal work, while only 3 percent of women agree. Add in the fact that husbands add an additional seven hours of labor to a home — labor done by their wives — and it’s a bleak picture of domestic partnership.

People often ask me why I believe still. I ask myself that too. Why do I still go to church through all of this? Why do any of us? If faith is changing and dying, why do we still participate? Why do 70 percent of Americans still profess to be Christian? Even more still believe in God.

I imagine it’s the same reason why people in Middle America don’t just move. In these small towns, where loss has eviscerated them and their communities, they stay. Because this place is part of their identity — this land that gives and destroys, that creates and breaks.

Driving home to Iowa from Marion, Indiana, I went through Chicago, sure, but it was far easier to find a field than a town. Far easier to find empty spaces than people. Even in my town, Cedar Rapids, the second-largest city in Iowa, you are never more than minutes from a cornfield. It’s a bigness that can feel limiting if you are the only one of you that you see. But the internet is an equalizer — bringing together voices that once felt alone, realigning boundaries, creating spaces where there were none before.

There is a danger too of creating ideological bubbles. Of filtering out dissent. It’s a criticism that was leveled heavily against blue states after the 2016 election. But when you are in the minority — the voice that is silenced — you are never in a bubble, even if you try. And finding a place where you don’t have to fight for acceptance, where you can just be accepted, even if that is online is the difference between pain and hope.