It’s funny you say breathe easier once outside of the States. I live just an hour from the US/Canada border and we would often head down for a weekend of Target and cheap liquor. As soon as we hit the other side I’d feel this stress, a sort of confinement. It always threw me off since we’re so similar, and yet vastly different, countries. There just seems to be a different type of pressure (for what would be a whole unraveling of nationalism and materialism, I suppose) on persons living in America I’ve never felt even living so close.