When I realized I could no longer afford to buy another home anywhere in Tennessee, I did something I never imagined I would do.

I started looking in other states.

The farther north I searched, the more affordable homes became. After decades of factory closures and population decline, many communities in the Northeast offered houses for a fraction of what similar homes were selling for in Tennessee.

Eventually, my daughter Britt and I found a Victorian home in Jamestown, New York. At more than 2,800 square feet, it would have cost at least twice as much in Nashville. On paper, it looked like the answer to our problems.

We bought it.

Unfortunately, reality didn’t match the photographs.

The house required far more repairs than we expected, and we soon discovered that buying property in another state came with expenses and regulations we had never encountered in Tennessee. Unexpected legal fees, delays in closing, and the cost of temporary housing quickly drained the modest profit we had made selling our cabin in Crossville.

Owning a home is one thing.

Being able to afford living in it is something else entirely.

Although Jamestown gave us the opportunity to own another house, it never truly felt like home. More than 700 miles separated us from our family, lifelong friends, and the Nashville theater community that had shaped so much of my life.

I missed directing plays.

I missed reviewing productions for The Nashville PRIDE.

Most of all, I missed the people.

After two years, we made another difficult decision.

We would move again.

This time, our search led us even farther north.

I had long been fascinated by the state of Maine. Years earlier, my Uncle Jim (a Tennessee State Park ranger and lover of the outdoors) used to tell me that if he couldn’t live in Tennessee, Maine would be his second choice.

“It’s still mostly wilderness,” he would say.

As it turned out, northern Maine also offered something else that had become increasingly difficult to find in Tennessee.

Affordable homes.

We eventually found a modest ranch-style house in Madawaska, a small town on the Canadian border. From our front porch, we could see New Brunswick across the St. John River.

It wasn’t Nashville.

It wasn’t even Tennessee.

But it was a place we could afford.

The move placed us more than 1,400 miles from the city where I had spent nearly my entire life. Friends, relatives, church, and the theater community that had become my extended family were suddenly a long drive (or an expensive plane ticket) away.

Still, we hoped we had finally found somewhere we could put down roots.

We were beginning again in a town of about 1,000 people, surrounded by forests, long winters, and neighbors who welcomed us with genuine kindness.

For the first time in years, I felt like the constant moving might finally be over.

But even after finding an affordable house, I was about to learn that buying a home and building a life are two very different things.

(Next week: Life in rural Maine brought new challenges—but also a deeper understanding of what gentrification had really taken away.)