Like many freshly minted adults, when I graduated from college, I wasn’t sure exactly what to do next. I had dreams and goals; as a writer, I wanted to pursue an MFA, but the timing didn’t feel right. My future was obscure to me — except for one thing. ‘
Whatever I did, I wanted to do it with my girlfriend of a year. And I did know for certain what my girlfriend wanted to do next: to get her master’s at a university closer to her family in Kentucky than our New England undergraduate school. She was admitted to Vanderbilt in Nashville, and suddenly, moving there seemed like my most likely destination.
My friends and family advised against the move
Without exception, my friends and family urged me not to make a major life decision based on a relationship that might not last. They thought I would feel alienated in Nashville, and not without reason, since I grew up in Seattle and was living in Massachusetts, and had never spent any meaningful amount of time anywhere that fell between the West Coast and the Northeast.
I found ways to rationalize my decision to follow my girlfriend — getting recommendations on what Nashville might have to offer writers, securing an entry-level position at a book review magazine — but secretly, I felt ridiculous whenever I said I had my own reasons for moving. My reason was that I wanted to be with her.
The move was fraught from the start, both practically and emotionally. We fought while packing. On the harrowing drive down, my girlfriend’s car was so full that she couldn’t see her blind spot, and I had to lean out the window to check for oncoming traffic every time she changed lanes.
At first, I questioned whether I had made the right decision
Once in Nashville, I picked up a second job to afford my half of our rent, working late into the night scooping ice cream after days at the magazine’s office. On the weekends, we went to tailgates with my girlfriend’s graduate school cohort or drove to visit her family. I didn’t know anyone in the city, and I didn’t have a car of my own. I was entirely dependent on her, and it was suffocating.
Exhausted and terrified that the advice I’d ignored had been absolutely right, I sought out something, anything that might lead to making a friend. I started showing up alone to writing events, forcing myself to chat with strangers. And I decided to join a choir, though I had no idea how I would get to and from the rehearsals.
At the first meeting, I asked if anyone might be interested in carpooling, trying not to seem as desperate as I felt. I had no idea that the two people who offered to give me rides would become part of my life for many years to come.
I made friends, and they have been there for me
It was those two friends who cheered me on when my temporary position at the magazine became permanent, which allowed me to quit my second job. They came to support me when a new friend I’d met at an open mic night invited me to lead a writing workshop. They celebrated me when I was promoted to an editor at the magazine. And they were the ones to comfort me when my relationship finally fell apart.
So, yes, the relationship didn’t last. But, as I reflected afterward, though I was sad things hadn’t worked out the way I wanted them to, I was surprised to realize that I couldn’t regret the path I’d chosen.
We can never know what the future holds, and however we try to justify our choices, they’re rarely perfectly rational. But perhaps the more reasonable thing to expect of ourselves is not that we choose perfectly, but that we work to make whatever we choose worthwhile. I moved to Nashville for love, but once I was in Nashville, I found an incredible job, a creative community, and two lifelong friends (one of whom is now my romantic partner). If I could do it all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing.
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