Nashville

I live in Nashville, Tennessee.

I’ve read that sentence 100 times and I’m still in disbelief. A dream I’ve dreamt and talked about since I was a little girl has come to fruition. One of my first times in Tennessee I was less than 10 years old, my mom bought me a postcard from a store in Chattanooga, and I kept it forever, subconsciously manifesting what I would finally do over twenty years later, the move I would finally make. And here we are.

It’s hard to explain the sudden feeling you get when you know a place is home. I guess it’s kind of like meeting your soul mate for the first time. One look at my husband and I knew I could love him forever – one look at the stretch of rolling hills and greenery, one dose of the southern hospitality, and I knew I could call this home.

Today Tennessee is really and truly my home, and I couldn’t be more grateful. I recognize the gift of bravery that’s required to completely uproot everything you know and all that’s comfortable to follow your heart. I refuse to be shy in that acknowledgment as I know it’s a gift I possess and a gift I should be proud of. Little ole me, a girl who’s afraid of everything, and comes from nothing, somehow musters up all the courage in the world to follow big inklings. It’s like what Elizabeth Gilbert talks about in Big Magic – when an idea visits you, you can either accept the partnership or let it move on to someone who will. I’m grateful I’m in the business of chasing dreams, and more often than not I accept the partnership.

This same bravery was required many times in my life, and I’ve made similar large moves and bold changes. It was required when I put myself through a university without a dollar to my family’s name or anyone in my bloodline having done it before me, it was required when I moved across the country the first time, trading coast for coast, to a foreign land I knew nothing about. It was required when I said yes to marrying a man at 24 years old after hardly knowing him a year. I fear change and simultaneously find comfort in it. The thing is while I do struggle with fear, what’s greater than my fear is my innate need to be honest. So, when an idea visits me that I know is true – I must see it through, or else I’m being dishonest by pretending I don’t know it exists. I can live with fear – I can’t live with fraud.

So maybe my life doesn’t look like everyone else’s. Maybe you’d call my journey untraditional or even selfish. That’s okay. I became comfortable with being different a long time ago, and the pressure to live a life that looks like everyone else’s doesn’t influence me. I believe in a higher power that places desires in our hearts for us to follow, and for us to be led to a greater purpose, even if we don’t know all the details of what that purpose is yet. Living a life of truth and love is my mission each day, and that will remain the priority over the many societal pressures a 31-year-old married woman faces. I’m a planner but I know I can’t plan the timeline of my life. I must simply follow the truth in my heart and the guidance of God. I’m grateful every day I married a man with the same lust for life and disregard for the opinions of others.

What then will this chapter will look like? I hope full of adventure. I hope full of dreams coming true, of wisdom being discovered and shared, of love being exchanged where it’s needed most, and of new purposes being revealed. I hope with this chapter comes deeper relationships with ones closest to us, new relationships with those we don’t know exist yet but will discover we need, and maybe even the bringing forth of new life to create relationships with.

I hope we find God’s presence here in the strongest and most undeniable way.  

Full of gratitude and grace. Ready to be led.