When I look back over my life, there’s only one decision that rises above all the others in sheer weight and complexity: the choice to move to Jacksonville to marry Daryl.
It wasn’t a fairy-tale moment with easy answers. It came during one of those strange, in-between chapters of my life—where everything I knew was in one place, and everything I hoped for was in another. And it didn’t help that the timing couldn’t have been worse.
Lizzi was about to enter her senior year of high school. If you’re a parent, you know that year is sacred. It’s a blur of “lasts”: last homecoming, last band concerts, last moments of childhood before adulthood starts creeping in. I had spent her entire life as a hands-on, daily presence. Leaving meant going from seeing her every day—talking, laughing, sharing meals, picking her up from school—to sending texts from 400 miles away and hoping the phone calls didn’t feel like a poor substitute for presence.
And then there was the fear of starting over. At that point, I didn’t have a career anymore—not really. I had been a journalist most of my adult life, but for seven years I’d worked as a parish administrator at a small church. That’s meaningful work, but it’s not exactly a résumé highlight when you’re trying to jump back into writing. The doors I knocked on stayed firmly closed. I had no idea what came next. Reinventing myself as a teacher wasn’t a grand plan; it was simply the one path that seemed open at the time.
So the decision to leave wasn’t just about geography. It was about identity, purpose, calling, and fatherhood—all wrapped into one tangle of fear and faith. Choosing to move meant choosing to trust that Lizzi would understand, that distance wouldn’t break our bond, and that somehow I’d rebuild a life that made sense again.
And the truth is—I did. It took time, but the life I have now, with Daryl, with teaching, with the family we’ve built and the story we’re still writing—none of it would exist if I hadn’t taken that leap.
But that doesn’t change the fact that it was the hardest decision of my life. Because the hardest decisions are the ones where love pulls you in two directions, and you have to believe that choosing one doesn’t mean losing the other.
Even now, all these years later, I can still feel that ache of driving away. But I can also see the grace that carried me through it. And in the end, that’s what makes the decision worth remembering—not the fear, but the faith that followed.
