Tabitha Goes Pacific Northwest: How I went from terrified to a whole new era

When I told my mom I was moving to Portland, she said my life was like a car up on cinder blocks.

She called me back that same evening, worried she had hurt my feelings. Worried I thought she was calling me an old junker.

I didn't think that at all. I understood exactly what she meant. And honestly, she was right.

Let me back up.

When the pandemic hit, I was in a terrible relationship in one of Texas's mega cities. The only thing I wanted was him out of my house and more time with just me and my kid. What I did not tell anyone during that time was that I had secretly taken my child to test and interview for an advanced academy that had just opened back home. The kind of program where seventh graders take high school classes, learn Mandarin, and operate on a completely different academic level. The day the world shut down, the acceptance letter arrived. That same day, we broke up and he moved out.

When my lease ended, we left. I moved back to a place I had never wanted to return to, but the pandemic had a way of making a small town near family with the best school option for my kid sound like the safest and best decision in the world. And for what we needed at that moment, it was.

I concentrated everything I had into my kid. Into building a life that gave them every possible advantage. Into starting Slight Look. Into volunteering. Into the incredible close circle of friends I have both in person and scattered across the internet who honestly have kept me sane in more ways than I can count. And for a long time, that was enough. It was more than enough. It was everything.

But here is the honest part. The part that lives underneath all of that.

I have spent my entire adult life being the best possible mom I could be. I became a mom young, young enough that when people try to do the math, they usually estimate I had my kid around age seven, and because I am a little vain, I am not going to correct anyone. 

I do not regret a single second of how I chose to live those years. Not one. But when you spend your early twenties as a solo parent, a lot of your life stays on pause. A lot of experiences do not happen. A lot of chapters simply do not get written yet.

And living in a small, conservative town where I have never quite fit, not as a kid and certainly not now as a fully confident and very outspoken adult, has not exactly been the environment that changes that. I have friends. I have a full life. But romantically, personally, in terms of my own expansion? That car has been sitting on cinder blocks for a while now. Wheels off. Not going anywhere.

Then at the beginning of this year, everything shifted.

My kid got accepted to their dream school on a full ride. Scholarship and grant money covering all of it, out of state, exactly where they wanted to go. The kid I raised solo, the kid I moved across the state for, the kid I built every single decision around for my entire adult life, is going to their dream school completely taken care of. 

I am still not sure I have the words for what that feels like. Pride does not scratch the surface. It does not even come close.

But pride and terror can exist in the same moment, and they absolutely did.

Because right behind that joy was a question I had never actually had to answer before. For the first time in my entire adult life, I was going to be alone. 

Not alone in a sad way, I do have two extremely opinionated small dogs who absolutely believe they run things, and honestly, they might be right. But alone in the sense that for the first time as an adult, really, it would just be me. No one to structure my days around. No school calendar dictating my schedule. No reason tying me to this town, this county, this state, any of it.

I was going to be a very young empty nester with a wide open map and absolutely zero obligation to stay put.

So naturally, I did what any reasonable person would do.

I lost my f*cking mind a little.

Not in a crisis way. In a links pouring into my phone way. 

In a I have been researching cargo vans and their storage capacity at midnight way. Van life started looking genuinely appealing. I was sending myself Airbnb listings from Savannah, Asheville, Santa Fe, the Pacific Northwest, places I had been and loved, never been, and places I had always been curious about. 

The vision was very nomadic, very free spirit, very figure out where I belong in the world by just going and living in it for a while. My friends were fully enabling this by the way (and I love y’all all for this!!!!). Nobody said slow down. They just kept sending links. Vans for sale. Airbnbs with good WiFi and great light. Fully stocked remote work setups in places that looked like a movie set.

I had a whole era I was trying to plan, because if you haven’t noticed yet, planning addicted B.I.T.C.H., trying to plan for something to make what was coming for me less scary because I at least had a plan.

Then one friend sat me down, not physically, we were on Zoom, and she said something that stopped the whole spiral.

She said the way I was approaching this was like when you are hungry and you start eating shredded cheese while you are standing in front of the open refrigerator looking for something to eat. And by the time you actually find what you want, you have already filled up on snacks and now you cannot even enjoy the real thing.

I felt that in my entire body because I absolutely do that. With food and apparently with major life decisions.

So I paused. I closed the van listings. I stopped OCD scrolling on Airbnb. I sat with the question instead of trying to immediately answer it with action.

And then, almost out of nowhere, Portland walked in.

One of my friends mentioned he was moving and planning to rent his home. 

I love his home (the fireplace gives Salvatore brother’s vibes). I love where he lives. It is about as opposite from Texas as you can get in almost every way, and something in me went very quiet and very curious the second he said it. 

When I casually asked about the rental, he got excited and asked if I would consider moving up there. I told him to give me a little time to think about it.

I talked to a couple of people. And the whole time, I already knew.

One friend called it out directly. 

She said why are you pretending like your answer is not already yes. Thank you, Ashley, because she was right. My answer was yes. It had been yes from the moment the question was asked.

That is how Portland was born.

Now I want to be transparent about something because I think it is important context for everything I am about to share in this series. 

My experience with Portland is limited. I have been to the airport. That is it. I have been to Oregon exactly once, for an event, and I saw the inside of a hotel in Ashland and that was the extent of my Oregon experience. The house I am moving into I have seen in photos. The neighborhood I will be living in I have never walked through. The city I am about to call home I have essentially only flown over.

And I am doing it anyway.

Because sometimes the shredded cheese version of a decision is trying every option on paper until something feels safe enough. 

And sometimes the real meal is the thing that just feels right in a way you cannot fully explain but also cannot argue with. Everything started falling into place in that way that things do when something is actually meant to happen. The home. The timing. The budget. The clients. The work. My family eventually coming around, my grandma cried, my mom made the cinder blocks comment, and they got there. It all just started moving.

Now here is where this becomes a business story and not just a personal one, because I know what some of you are thinking. You run a virtual business. Why does location matter?

It matters more than people realize.

Yes, what I do is largely virtual. But the energy of where you work, who surrounds you, what is accessible to you, that is not nothing. That is actually everything. Right now I have one or two coffee shops to choose from when I need to work somewhere that is not my house, and I better hope the WiFi is cooperating and nobody brought their entire extended family in that day. The options for being around other business owners who are building things and thinking differently are limited in a way that has been a quiet constraint I did not fully name until I started imagining the alternative.

Portland is the alternative.

The idea of being surrounded by people who are building things, who think differently, who are weird on purpose and proud of it, and yes I know Keep Portland Weird is actually also Austin's thing but Austin is on its own journey right now and I will leave that alone. The idea of walking into a room full of people who get it, not just virtually but physically, in real life, over coffee, or a beer, that I did not make in my own kitchen, is the kind of thing I did not realize I was starving for until it was suddenly possible.

What is good for you personally and what is good for you professionally are not two separate conversations. They are the same conversation. When you are living somewhere that quietly dims you, that energy shows up in your work, whether you acknowledge it or not. When you are in an environment that actually fits you, that shows up too. 

I have felt it in virtual spaces where I found my people. I cannot imagine what I will feel when that is my actual physical daily life.

Here is what the move looks like on paper, because I want you to understand the size of what I am doing.

Less than 75 days between the decision and the move. A city I have flown over exactly once. A house I have seen in photos. A neighborhood I have never walked through. Living alone for the first time in my entire adult life. My home doubling in size while the number of people inside it drops to just me and two small dogs who will absolutely claim the whole thing anyway. Trading Texas sun for Pacific Northwest everything, and despite being extremely pale I do genuinely enjoy lying outside like a lizard covered in SPF so that adjustment is real. No friends there yet. The one person I know is the one who is leaving.

And I am doing it anyway.

Because my mom was right. The car has been on cinder blocks. And my kid is off to their dream school, and the door opened at exactly the right moment, and everything started falling into place in that way that only happens when something is actually true.

In less than a year, my life will look nothing like it does right now. 

Not personally. Not romantically. Not professionally. Not socially. Not physically. Every single category is about to be different.

That is the most terrifying sentence I have ever written.

It is also the most exciting one.

And some of that transformation has already started. If you caught my last post, you know I have already been doing the work of showing up as exactly who I actually am in my business. Portland is not the beginning of that. It is the continuation of it. 

So this is me, standing at the bottom of the mountain, looking up. And from here on out I am going to be sharing all of it on Strategy With A Bite. The scary parts. The surprising parts. The moments where I have no idea what I am doing and the moments where everything clicks. The business moves, the personal ones, the ones that are both at the same time.

Want to follow along as all of this unfolds? I will be talking through all of it, the business stuff, the big life stuff, and everything in between, on here in my blog and on my podcast Slight Look.

The car is off the cinder blocks.

Let's see where it goes.