The Hardest Decision I’ve Ever Made

People I know in real life know I have made a massive decision recently, but it is not something I have talked about much publicly until now.

I moved.

Almost 1,000 miles, from Rhode Island to Western North Carolina.

My husband and I sold our house on July 20, 2023 and we have now been in NC for just over two weeks at the time of this posting. We both agree that this was the most difficult decision we have ever made.

The reason it was difficult was because we were established in Rhode Island. We knew what life was like in Rhode Island, and we were used to it. Life wasn’t easy. In fact, for a number of reasons it was incredibly stressful. But my friend Kristen’s philosophy is, “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know.”

We were at a church where John had been the pastor for fifteen years. It was very difficult to uproot from those relationships. We experienced feelings of guilt for leaving people we felt responsible to.

I was accompanying two community choruses – work I enjoyed tremendously. One chorus had even commissioned a work from me. It was hard to say goodbye to people who have been so supportive.

If we had stayed in RI, my private studio would have continued to grow. I had about fifteen students I enjoyed teaching tremendously and word was getting around. In the last month or two before we left, I had at least five inquiries from parents looking for lessons for their kids.

John was also performing often at nursing homes, memory care units, and other senior venues. He especially enjoyed performing with his good friend, Judy Hall Gray (Songbird Judy.) He was having so much fun, and the idea of starting over and making brand-new musical connections was daunting.

So why would we leave?

Opportunity.

One day, an announcement came across email through one of the composer groups I belong to about a master’s program in music composition. These types of emails come through fairly often, but most of the time I am not interested.

I had been told by several people that either I didn’t need a graduate degree in composition or that a graduate degree in composition was not worth the investment in time or money.

Despite this, I still held onto the idea of pursuing a master’s degree. Not so much for the degree itself and possible work in academia, but for the time it would afford me to focus on composition, further develop my compositional skills, and – most of all – connect and collaborate with many other highly skilled musicians congregated in one place. While it is possible for me to get those things outside of school, it will take longer. Pursuing a degree will speed things up.

But in order for me to be interested, a program had to check two boxes: 1) It had to offer a fellowship providing a full-tuition scholarship and a stipend, and 2) it had to be in a location where I would want to live.

I couldn’t attend grad school in RI because a stipend wouldn’t cover the amount of money I earned with my other work, it was too expensive to live in RI without the work I was doing, and I didn’t have time to add grad school onto all that work.

Several schools that offer fellowships were not appealing to me because of their location.

However, that day the name of the school caught my eye: Appalachian State University. I was intrigued because the school is located in the mountains of Western North Carolina, one of the places I have long dreamed of living.

I have wanted to live in the mountains since I was about fifteen years old. Even in my “senior will” in my high school yearbook, I named my favorite place as a cabin in the mountains with me and my music.

For decades, my husband and I have traveled up to New Hampshire to camp and hike. The mountains have always been our “go to” place. But when we lived in RI it was a 4+ hour drive, and when you work at a church, you can’t just take off for a weekend. Nor could we go during the week because of my work. The mountains were a once-a-year, twice if we were lucky, brief visit. Too often it rained the entire week we camped. We certainly didn’t get our fill of the mountains – ever.

But even New Hampshire didn’t offer what Western North Carolina was offering.

Here in NC, we are only an hour from the mountains, an hour from the school, and an hour from Asheville, the next music city destination. We are also only an hour from Charlotte and Winston-Salem, both of which also have several music festivals including the Southern Guitar Festival, which is perfect for my husband.

We could have decided that, at ages forty-seven and fifty, we were established and well past the time for taking the risk of moving several states away and starting over in our careers. A few people advised us against the move.

Opportunity is just that – opportunity. It is not a guarantee.

But nothing is a guarantee, really.

Appalachian State University was the only school I applied to. I was accepted and offered the fellowship.

It was now or never.

Yes, we are old enough to be established, but we are also still young enough to do something new. So, we decided to take the leap and put all our effort into expanding both our musical careers!

It turns out we were in a more precarious financial position in RI than we thought. We already knew our house needed a tremendous amount of work and was going to take every cent we made. But during the sales process we learned our septic system failed inspection and needed replacement. This was a major expenses we would not have been able to manage but were able to take care of through the proceeds from the sale.

For that reason alone, the move turned out to be a good decision.

We’ve been in NC for two weeks now. I started work as a church pianist. School begins in two weeks. John has already booked a few gigs and has been hired as a session guitarist at a local recording studio.

Time to choose a trail for our first hike!

I’d love to hear from you! Please comment or send me a message telling me about yourself!