Decision Made: The Move to Tennessee

There’s nothing like taking a vacation in Autumn (I know, the “a” should be lowercase, but let me show respect for this delightful season – lol)! I often visited Eric & Tresia in Tennessee. I loved to visit in the Autumn because there was a cool, crisp chill in the air and air and it seemed all of the colors in the vegetation came alive. Orange, red, purple, yellow, and green speckled on a backdrop of beautiful blue skies as one views the landscape. I loved it!

When Darrell and I got married we vacationed every Autumn. We went to visit Eric & Tresia in Tennessee several times as well. One of our favorite trips was to the East Coast of the USA. We toured Providence, RI and many other beautiful sites up through Bar Harbor, ME. When we arrived in Maine, it seemed the world stopped and we fell in love with the lighthouses and coastal towns. The harbors, churches, and fall foliage were beyond what words can express. Throughout the years, we did not visit in winter or spring, only summer and autumn. Our friends, Mike & Dee, summered in Maine so we went back as often as possible to see them and Maine. 

Last year the discomfort of summer in Texas, combined with our increasing age and awareness of the brevity of life, we grew so discontent with our life trajectory. We began some changes with the intention of “one day” moving to a place with four seasons. We were torn between Maine and Tennessee – quite different, right? We absolutely love Maine but we have always been drawn to Tennessee’s southern charm and four, rather balanced seasons. There seemed to be little to no employment opportunities for me in either state. As we vacationed in a lovely Airbnb in Cushing, ME in late July 2017 we were determined that we make our move in 2018 no matter whether or not we had employment. We have never been so adolescent with our decisions, not even when we literally were adolescents. It seemed irresponsible to just jump out there and follow a dream; nonetheless, it was in motion and we were heading toward the cliff of change. We were enjoying the vacation and dreaming of the day when we would sell everything and move to Maine…then, I got a call.

The call was from Cleveland State Community College in Tennessee. They asked for an interview and I was so surprised! I had changed my thoughts to focus on Maine since nothing was opening in Tennessee. After all, if we were going to jump off the cliff of familiarity then we might as well make it a jump to Maine. Nevertheless, we were cautiously excited. I decided there would be no pressure, and Darrell agreed. I would go as far in the interview process as they requested. If nothing else, I would learn from the process. I suppose I thought it would help me get a retail job when we moved to Maine – lol. Anyway, I completed a phone interview during our vacation. We returned home on Monday and drove to Cleveland, TN on Wednesday for a Thursday morning interview. By the following week I had accepted a job. We flew over to secure housing and banking, packed up our house, and put it on the market. Just about 10 days later, we and the cats were on the road for 14(ish) hours to get to the rental home in Tennessee. I began working a few days later. WOW! What a whirlwind! We were exhausted from packing up the house. I will do a video blog on that experience later.

Twenty-five plus years we have dreamed of living in Tennessee or somewhere with four seasons. We have prayed, applied for jobs, dreamed, felt disappointed, worried about parents, tried to talk ourselves out of it because we didn’t really think it would work out, and wondered why things were not working out for us to make a move. In a brief, few weeks, everything changed and we are here. I really enjoy my job! Darrell is pursuing his goals of building fine furniture and doing home inspections. So many things fell into place on such short notice. I suppose to God none of this was last minute. Nonetheless, we are humans who cannot see the future and we are thankful that we did not give up on our dream. We kept talking about it and dreaming about it. We are excited to see how our other goals and dreams will come to fulfillment. It is so nice to feel like we are choosing to live life and life is not taking us over. I suppose if anyone could have passed the Marshmallow Test (look it up if you don’t know about this psychological idea), it would have been Darrell and me: delay of gratification in abundance. It’s worth your time and energy to keep moving forward and keep dreaming.