Why I Moved Back To Texas After 5 Years.

When I told people I was moving back to Texas, I got slammed with questions and comments. “Why?”, “What’s making you leave Tennessee?”, “For work?”, “Did something happen?”, “You can’t give up on your dream like that.”, “So you failed, just like I said you would.”, and the famous “Moving back won’t fix you.” So many things were said and I couldn’t list them all if I tried, but these were the ones that stuck with me and the ones I feel should be talked about. Now, if you’re thinking “you don’t have to explain yourself”, you’re right. I don’t and I’m not. I simply want to share my answers to these questions to help others understand that sometimes what the world sees as “failure”, is actually a person’s success. Keep reading to find out what I mean.

Question 1 - Why?

I think this was the first question everyone asked me just because they were genuinely curious why I was making such a big move. After all, I moved to Tennessee to follow my dream, so leaving is a big shock to a lot of people. I even asked myself why I wanted to go back so bad. I was so unhappy in Texas before, why go back? This took a lot of digging into my inner self and asking myself some difficult questions.

Eventually I realized that I was missing a piece of me that I left in Texas in 2017. My family. When I left and went to school, it was easier because I was solely focused on graduating. I had friends that were easy to talk to and I was honestly so busy that there wasn’t much time to think about missing my family. I moved to Tennessee after graduating in 2019 and the first year was pretty easy. I was constantly busy and enjoyed everything I was doing. Then 2020 came. Between the pandemic, 2 horrible relationships, losing every shoot I had scheduled, losing my job and not being able to travel as easily, everything went to shit.

At the beginning of 2021, I thought I was on my way back to the way 2019 was, but I was wrong. I was sad all the time. I was lonely all the time. I felt so drained mentally, emotionally and physically 24/7. I realized it was because I couldn’t go 20 mins down the road and hangout with my family or be a part of every get together. I wanted to be back in a place where I felt I could be unapologetically me. I wanted to be able to help my nieces and nephews if they needed it. I wanted to be home so that I could have the missing piece of me back. That’s why.

Question 2 - What’s making you leave Tennessee?

As I mentioned above, it was that missing that really put the desire to move home in my head. However, there were things going on in Tennessee that were pushing me away from there. I was living in Nashville and there were a lot of people my age that I could have been friends with. However, I’m not the outgoing, pretty blonde, rich, mean girl. I have always been friends with more guys than girls, but in Nashville, things were different than I was used to. The girls didn’t want to be my friend because I wasn’t interested in makeup and fashion, but the guys didn’t want to be my friends because I wasn’t ‘rowdy’ enough. There’s many other reasons why it was hard to make friends, but this isn’t about that. I just had no friends.

On the business side of things, people were selfish, greedy and straight up rude.There were a lot of great people that I worked with and that weren’t those things. I will forever remember those 5-6 people and be grateful to them. Unfortunately, the bad out-weighed the good in this case. I had people wanting to pay me $300 for a $500-$600 job. How are you going to tell me $500 is too much to travel nearly 5 hours over 4 days when you aren’t paying for hotel, gas, food, or anything? I paid for everything and made probably $50 off that. I barely broke even. Then there’s those that ask me to do work for them and say “I’ll mail you a check” and 2 years later, I still haven’t been paid a penny. Then there’s the ones I offered free music videos to so I could build my portfolio. I gave them a FREE music video. Yet they are still upset when the video doesn’t have the same quality as Luke Bryan’s $10,000 music video. I never encountered issues within my business until I moved to Nashville. Now, I sound shallow, but mind you, these are people that make THOUSANDS on 1 show. Some refuse to pay you and the next month buy houses and cars and horses. Meanwhile, I have $5 to my name after paying bills because they didn’t want to pay me. It was so exhausting to deal with. It took every bit of passion I had for music videos away from me.

Question 3 - For work?

Well, kind of. Obviously I just said the work was rough when it came to my business, but it wasn’t like I had to move for work. I had a good full time job in Tennessee that I loved. If anything I just felt so unhappy in my personal life that I wasn’t happy in my career. No, it wasn’t for work. However, moving definitely helped my career path majorly.

Question 4 - Did something happen?

Despite everything I’ve said so far in this post, nothing happened to push me to move. My 2 bad relationships in 2020 definitely put some negativity in my brain, but neither of those pushed me out of state. If anything, they helped encourage me to get my metal health in check, which led me to make a well-thought-out decision about the move.

Ok, so these next 3 are actually comments that I get, but I always respond to them so here we go…

You can’t give up on your dream like that.

First of all, who the hell said I was giving up? I’m not giving up. I had to take a different path and maybe it looks like I’m giving up to some, but I’m still very much working towards my goal. Not that it’s any of your business, but I’ve actually spent hours upon hours getting both my personal and professional lives organized and under control. I’m still moving forward and not “giving up”.

So you failed, just like I said you would.

Failed? Where did I fail? I gained a lot of memories, experience and lifelong friends over the last 5 years. I didn’t fail. I may not have been as successful as I wanted to be, but who says that’s failing? By not being as successful as I hoped, I learned that success is measured in a variety of ways. I still say I’m successful because I grew, I learned, and I had fun.

Moving back won’t fix you.

I never thought for one second that moving back would “fix” me. I don’t think I need fixing. What I need is to learn how to love myself and I’m halfway there. I needed my family because a piece that I needed for continued growth was in Texas with my family. I didn’t expect my problems and struggles to go away, but I knew they would be easier being with family and friends that I was used to and comfortable around. 

In conclusion, I moved back because I genuinely believed it was the best thing for my mental health and would be a step forward in my journey. I always tell people, “follow your gut”, so who am I if I don’t listen to my own advice. Since I’ve been back in Texas, my family and I have all seen major changes in my happiness, energy, and productivity. We all have noticed me slowly getting back on track and becoming happier than I was in Tennessee.

To end this post, I want to say that I’m incredibly grateful for my parents, my sister, her boyfriend, my aunt and my niece. Without these people, I would have never been able to do the things I’ve done in my life. 

Leave a comment below and tell me who are your biggest supporters in life?