Tabitha Goes Pacific Northwest: How I Went From Terrified to a Whole New Era, Part 5

Twenty nine days.

Four weeks.

I pulled up the Pod website and it said your pod is coming in 24 days and I genuinely wanted to throw up. Like horror movie projectile vomit. I knew June was coming. I have been counting down this whole time, writing about it, documenting it, telling you all about it. But there is something about seeing it in black and white on a shipping website that makes it suddenly and violently real.

Twenty-nine days and I will be locking the door of the house we have lived in since 2020 and never coming back.

I am going to sit with that sentence for a second and so are you.

My kid graduated last Friday. Fourth in their class. Two months of summer standing between them and college in Colorado. I could not be more proud if I tried. And I will be disgustingly honest about what I did while they were out celebrating at graduation parties.

I sat at home.

Alone.

Just stuck in it. This era is gone. Book closed. Never again will my days be centered around the school schedule. Never again will the high point of my chihuahua's day be the morning ride to drop my kid off and the afternoon ride to pick them up, something he has done faithfully for ten years like the devoted little man he is.

Then I had an unexpected visitor stop by to pick up my keys to the Mansion, the nonprofit I have volunteered with and will officially no longer be a board member of after June 4th. She walked in, saw me standing there in my nightgown that I genuinely wish had been less see through (call people before you come by I am begging you) looked at the boxes surrounding me, and teared up. She said she hated that I was leaving and a little piece of my heart scattered right there on the floor between us while we hugged. There are people in this town who became such an unexpected part of my story and leaving them is its own kind of grief I did not see coming.

And as if the universe wanted to make sure it was paying attention, a box arrived this week with no return address and a note that was cut off mid sentence. All I could read was HI TABBY THIS IS VERY RANDOM BUT I HAD AN OLD MEMORY COME TO MIND OF STEALING A TRUFFLE FROM YOU AS A and then nothing. No name. No return address. Just a large bag of truffles so thoroughly melted by the Texas May heat that they had soaked through the bottom of the box entirely.

So now I have melted mystery chocolate, a stranger who calls me Tabby, a truffle thief somewhere in my past I cannot identify, and the very reasonable question of who on earth mails chocolate to Texas in May.

Closing this chapter is wild y'all.

Which is also how I found myself standing there realizing I am also now navigating the gap between locking this door and moving into the new one. Fifteen days of being technically homeless. Nomadic. Living that van life era I was fantasizing about six months ago except without the van and with significantly more anxiety. So there is that. But this version is with my dear friends and family who are already ready for the dates when we'll be staying in their guest bedrooms and soaking up as much together time as we can without being depressed messes. And I will be so real when I say picking out these dates makes me feel like I’m getting hives because how does one CHOSE?

Anticipating this final month was rough. Actually living in it has been something else entirely.

But we are making the absolute most of it. And that starts with the drive.

We sat down with a physical map, yes kids they still exist, and planned our route. And I will say this. I love getting advice. I genuinely do. I ask for help, I listen, I consider. But when something feels right in my whole body, people can respectfully take their opinions and f*ck all the way off. And this had everything to do with the drive.

We got a lot of take the shortest route. We got one genuinely unhinged suggestion involving the great plains and a route so far north it would have taken us through likely half of Canada before cutting back down to Oregon. But what we landed on came to us completely by accident through, of all things, Gravity Falls.

If you have not watched Gravity Falls, please remedy that immediately, because it is everything Pacific Northwest, mystery, and shenanigans.

We have been watching it together and decided our road trip needed to be Gravity Falls themed, which means we are driving Interstate 10 through the state I have an entirely rational fear of due to every earthquake disaster movie ever made, California. From there we pick up Highway 395, stop to visit the actual town that inspired Gravity Falls, play in a Jurassic Park inspired park, and then head up the legendary Highway 101.

This is not just a drive. This is an experience. A mysterious one. And as for my earthquake fear I will simply have to get over it the same way I had to get over my fear of volcanoes when I found out parts of Portland are built directly on extinct ones. Growth is uncomfortable and apparently so is my new home's geology.

We are also recording on the road. 

Organic Free Range Human Thoughts episodes filmed mid move, mid road trip, mid chaos. And my own podcast Slight Look will be capturing the mayhem in real time. If you have ever wanted a front row seat to someone's life not through a gross artificial perfect lens, this is your chance; we keep it very real here.

Now here is where the CEO part of my brain has to step in because she has been very loud lately and she deserves airtime.

Over my laptop screen right now I have two dry erase boards staring back at me. One is broken down into business work by meetings, this week's tasks, and work ahead tasks. The other is household and moving tasks. Then there is the nonprofit fundraiser, my final one, after which I will never walk back into the Mansion I originally joined just to get to spend time in. And then there is puppy prep, because my boys are about to become city dogs and need to become polite young gentlemen on walks, which requires extra walks, leash training, and me learning to manage two dogs simultaneously without getting tangled up and face planting on a Portland sidewalk in front of my new neighbors.

With all of that on the boards the CEO babe in me has been absolutely ruthless about how time gets spent right now. And one of the things that has made the biggest difference is my work with business builder retainer clients. 

For those who are newer here, a business builder retainer is essentially where I embed myself into a business and run the ongoing backend operations long term. Think about the part of your business that you dread, the fun sucker, the wow eight hours of my day just disappeared writing this newsletter, making this reel, doing a seasonal update to one page of my website, setting up automations for a launch. That part is not your zone of genius. Your zone of genius is what lights you up. And lucky for you the work most people dread is like whispering sweet nothings in my ear. Did someone say inventory spreadsheets? Yum. If that sounds like what your business needs right now, you can learn more here. And yes the CEO babe approved this message😂  

One piece of my brain wants to bed rot and grieve every single thing that is changing. Another wants to plan every detail of the adventure ahead. Another is doing final goodbye laps with friends and family trying to soak up every last bit of time. And the CEO babe is standing over all of it slapping a ruler against her palm reminding me that time is the most valuable thing I have right now and I need to be prioritizing like my business depends on it.

Because it does.

Twenty nine days.

Four weeks.

I will be locking that door, embracing nomadic living for 2 weeks, and driving into a whole new era with two dogs, a packed Toyota, a Gravity Falls themed road trip, and more feelings than I know what to do with.

And I am documenting every single bit of it.

If you want to follow along in real time, not just here on the blog but in the raw unfiltered in between moments, come join the newsletter. This is where the honest stuff lives and I refuse to let the next person walking this path do it without breadcrumbs.