What Nobody Tells You About Moving Cross Country and Becoming an Empty Nester in the Same Month

I have been trying to figure out how to write this one for a while now.

Not because nothing happened in Month 1 in Portland. But because what happened in August was quieter and stranger and harder to name than a grocery store closed for a party or a dog growling at something in the woods at 1am. August was the month the self-assigned tasks started running out, and the questions started screaming.

Let me back up.

I came home from dropping my kid at college to a Portland that was still shrouded in smoke. A different Portland than the one I had left. And a house in total chaos because we had only unpacked the bare minimum before the Colorado trip, and now it was just me staring at boxes wondering what the hell came next.

I had a migraine from the smoke inhalation that hit me like a freight train the moment I finally stopped moving long enough for my body to collect another debt. Back in Texas if I had a headache like that, I would have laid on the couch and done absolutely nothing. Except I did not have a couch. I had a single chair and a bed and approximately four hundred boxes and a very loud silence that I was not ready to sit in.

So I did what I always do when I do not want to think about something.

I made the couch my entire reason for existing.

It was due to arrive the next day and I spent every available brain cell pushing boxes around the living room to make space for it because couch couch couch couch couch was the only thought I was capable of having. It arrived in pieces. The website said it was a two-person assembly. I am one person with a migraine and two dogs who decided the half-assembled couch was absolutely their new bed and sat on it while I folded myself into a pretzel trying to hold the arms in place and screw things in simultaneously.

I assembled that couch through sheer spite and I am genuinely proud of that.

I will say that what I ordered was a hunter green couch. What I received is what I am choosing to call sage green and absolutely not a suspiciously blue colored couch. I am choosing to believe this. We are not discussing it further.

Living room loungable. Check. Bedroom had a bed. Check. Next up, the office because a bitch has got to work and I could not keep podcasting from the floor of the living room. I had these gorgeous red walls that I genuinely loved until I realized the pink undertones in my skin start screaming on camera against them. So the office got a makeover. Millennial gray. Crispy and clean. I look great against millennial gray and that became the entire design philosophy of August.

I started decorating every room in colors that make me look phenomenal.

I am completely serious about this. The colors I look good in are now the colors of my walls, my bed, my couch, my kitchen. I want to look phenomenal in bed. I want to look phenomenal on my couch. I want to look phenomenal in my office. If I am going to be alone in this house I am going to look incredible in it, and I stand by this decision fully.

Then thrifting because thrifting in Portland is an Olympic sport and everyone does it, and I needed winter clothes because nothing I owned was Portland, Oregon-ready. Then artwork because the art I had in Texas was something to fill the walls, and now I can throw my entire personality onto every surface of this house. I started making my own graphic design pieces for the bedroom and bathroom. I completely abandoned my dark academia office aesthetic for something more colorful and fun. Task after task after task.

And then in the middle of all of that busyness my phone lit up with news I was not expecting. The Berclair Mansion, the nonprofit I sat on the board of for four years, the place I dragged out of the dark ages kicking and screaming and threw a spotlight on, got nominated for best museum in Texas. I had a moment alone in my allegedly sage green living room that felt like a very quiet standing ovation for something I did not know I had accomplished until it was already behind me. Then I went back to my task list. 

Dog culture is enormous here. My neighbor told me people actually drive to our neighborhood just to walk their dogs. I walked the dogs nearly every single day soaking up the Portland sun while I still could. I went to movie events. A grand opening. A Thelma and Louise-themed tasting menu film night. I saw The Craft in theaters. I discovered a museum with a giant theater that hosts events and I am now fully obsessed with it. I found the vintage theaters and developed strong opinions about them almost immediately, and if you follow me on Instagram you already know exactly which one I prefer.

And this is how I found myself perched at a cigar bar inside my favorite theater, reading a book called How To Kill A Guy In Ten Dates, sipping a beer whose name I still do not know because I have been letting bartenders pick my drinks, calling it socialization.

I was technically in public. I was technically around people. I was absolutely not socializing. Bad Tabitha. I know. 

But somewhere in between the tasks and the thrifting and the dog walks and the cigar bar book club of one, something was happening that I was not fully ready to name.

The questions I had been outrunning for months were starting to catch up.

Who am I now that I am not a full-time mom. Who am I outside of a culture so ingrained in me that I did not realize how much of a box it was until I was no longer in it. No offense to anyone who loves Texas culture, there is a lot to love, but stepping outside that very small, very specific box into no box at all, no parameters, no schedule, no guidelines, just the Tabitha show and whatever I decide to do with my life, is a disorienting and exhilarating and genuinely terrifying thing to sit with.

And then in the last week of August the tasks ran out.

The house was pulled together. The office looked great. The couch was assembled and allegedly sage green (funny enough it matches my “deep green” comforter exactly). And I had nothing left to assign myself, and the last week of August was hard as hell because of it. I still have a room of doom downstairs full of boxes and decor I have not addressed yet because I genuinely do not know if the Tabitha who picked out that decor is the Tabitha talking to you right now.

And a never-ending task list finally wrapping up meant something else too. It meant I finally had the space to think clearly about what came next. So naturally I assigned myself more tasks. Funner ones this time. 

I opened my doors once again to new clients and bigger projects. Because I am finally in a space where I can hold space for more clients again. The move is behind me. My kid is at their dream school. The house is together. And I am ready to start making people's dreams come true again. If that is you, now is the time to reach out.

I also came to terms with the rubber band situation. I have an incredible friend group back home and this is hard to explain. It was like I went from being a very happy stretched rubber band filled with fun and love to snapping back. I am present in everyone's phones, facetime calls, and social media but there is something irreplaceable about being able to show up at your best friend's house and rant about your day over a glass of wine. So I joined some things. I got on the friend apps. Because getting out in public while reading How To Kill A Guy In Ten Dates (a natural fuck you and fuck off to people around) alone at a cigar bar is not the same as actually meeting people and I know that.

And then the other thing.

The last time I dated was 2023. I wanted to work on myself and I applied the do not mess with Texas rule to dating in Texas. If you are reading this and wondering why I never said yes to going out with you, that is why and probably not the only reason... I digress, I am now head over heels in love with myself in a way 2022 Tabitha genuinely could not have imagined and I am in a place where I can actually sink roots and the vibe is right and your girl is ready.

I was going to meet someone organically. A meet cute while walking the dogs or at a bookstore, something worthy of its own terrible Hallmark movie. And then I remembered my dogs are absolute chaos agents and would derail any romantic moment within seconds. Also given how much time I have spent at home, the organic meet cute candidate would basically have to already be living in the attic, and I definitely do not want that.

Enter stage right the dating apps. And I will say it is genuinely nice to be somewhere so politically aligned with how I live my life and my values. That is all I will say about that for now.

So here is where August lands. The house looks great. The business is open to new clients. The friend apps are downloaded. The dating apps are downloaded. I look phenomenal in every room of my house.

And the ticking time bomb of actually being alone, truly alone, sitting with all of it, is still ticking quietly in the background.

I have not addressed it yet.

But it is on the list!!