I never thought I wouldn’t know where we’d live… but two weeks after our honeymoon we found ourselves pondering that question exactly.

We moved up to North Carolina a few weeks before our wedding (because we’re crazy) to buy a specific home, and when the home we wanted was no longer available, we found ourselves wondering… what now?

Our 6-month rental was almost up and we didn’t know where to go next. Finally, I felt like the gypsies our family has claimed we are. The weeks that followed were a mixture of stressful and exciting. We went town hopping exploring numerous cities and vetting them. Each day began optimistic and full of promise, could this be our next home?

Our process was simple: gather a list of cities nearby Asheville, NC, insert “main street” into google and check out the downtown. In our minds, this is a pretty good indication of what it would be like. If your downtown sucks, well…

It wasn’t a sophisticated process by any means. But we committed. Time was of the essence. And it was an adventure! Finally, after weeks of googling, driving and pinteresting, we knew there was one place we had to be in order to create what we want: Bryson City, NC.

Bryson City, North Carolina

Bryson City is a special place in Western North Carolina. We first discovered it when Jaime’s grandparents were living in a beautiful granite house overlooking the mountains and its modest downtown. It’s a small town with all the charm you’d expect for a place smack in the mountains with breweries, restaurants and even a train. It’s nothing like Miami–– like literally at all.

When we first visited Bryson City there was nothing that attracted us to move there. We were in our careers and Miami was the more practical choice to do that. But as they say, never spit into the wind… or never say never? How about: don’t make assumptions because we often end up backtracking on them.

I remember vividly telling Jaime I’d never move to a small town because it would be suicide for my career (at the time advertising, an industry considered a luxury to most companies and certainly unnecessary in small towns) and it’d be boring as hell. And yet, here we are, just a few short years later making the move to that very town I swore I’d never want to live in.

Time changes everything

It is the ultimate neutralizer. It forces us to evolve with its eventual passage.

We’ve changed in ways that were completely unexpected. That career I favored so much can technically be done remotely… and to be honest, I don’t attach my identity to it nearly as much as I did before. I’ve since discovered what my calling is and that acts as my North Star. The realization of what I want to contribute to the world led me here to North Carolina. It gave me the courage to completely change my life knowing and trusting that I can’t let myself down if I keep following what I’m meant to do.

My vision intersects with Jaime’s and that shared dream brought us to the mountains specifically, a place where we can reconnect with that soul mission and build upon it. I’ve never been more excited for what the next few years of our life are going to look like. These days I’m learning to remain present–– keeping the future vision in mind but my attention focused to the moment at hand, or at the very most a few months out. For us, the next few months will look like purchasing our home, moving in January (the COLDEST month of the year for WNC–– because again, we’re out of our minds) and starting renovations on our house.

I’m so looking forward to getting out of our temporary apartment, though it has been good to us and was the first place we called home together in NC–– and as newlyweds! I’m filled with so much joy for the unknown for the first time in a while. I don’t know what life will look like in Bryson City, but I know we’re in a state of discovery and so many things will be revealed to us soon.

I can hardly wait to share more with you.