It was Memorial Day weekend 2018 when our house shopping in Nashville began in earnest. Ashley and I adored the real estate agent we had used to buy (and sell) our first home in Nashville and had reached out to her months before. She was familiar with our style and we knew which neighborhoods we wanted to focus on. She had put together an automated email of listings that Ashley and I used to help point out what we did and did not like. (Side note: one of my weird hang ups is that I love sidewalks and I almost always consider it a non-starter if there are no sidewalks in the neighborhood.) We planned a trip back to Nashville for Memorial Day weekend so that we could physically see houses. Our families would come visit that weekend and take Max to different places so that Ashley and I could focus on the task at hand: finding a new home.

The culmination of this process was a long road. Ashley and I had decided months before that we were ready to move and live closer to family. There were things we liked about living in California, but one of the hardest things about living out there was being far away from family, especially with Max wanting to spend time with relatives. We both agreed that we wanted to live in a city. So we looked at cities relatively close to western Kentucky. There were cities we ruled out immediately. We were left with two options: Louisville or Nashville. I went to school at the University of Louisville and I love the city. I will probably always have a longing to live there again. Ashley has no connection to the city, other than visiting me during college. I tried to convince her that we should give it a chance.

During our holiday trip to visit family in December 2017, I convinced Ashley to come with me overnight to Louisville. I thought the best way to sell her on the idea was to show her what it was like and hopefully my adoration for the city would rub off onto her. We rented an Airbnb and spent a day with a realtor looking at some of the different neighborhoods in the area. Over the course of the following month after our visit, we continued to look at home listings for Louisville. Eventually it became obvious that Ashley was not as excited about the prospect of moving to Louisville as I was. My pitch landed flat. We discussed our options and landed on Nashville as our future destination. This led to us contacting our realtor in Nashville and to us scheduling that home finding trip over Memorial Day weekend in 2018.

I sometimes still wonder what it would have been like moving back to Louisville. I love Louisville. I love Nashville too. I believe Nashville became the better fit for us because we were both comfortable with the city, having lived here previously.

Anyway, that is what is on my mind this Memorial Day: what brought us to this point.