24/06/2025
My first cell phone came with an 818 area code. I was 15-ish, growing up in LA, navigating crushes, curfews, and AOL away messages.
Through college at UC Davis, my 20s (and some 30s) in SF, and now nearly a decade in Portland—that number followed me everywhere. It wasn’t just a number. It was identity. A little tether to home.
When I moved to Portland in 2016, it wasn’t exactly rolling out the welcome mat for California transplants. Within days, someone gently suggested I ditch my CA plates. I did. And when I became a Realtor, I got a 503 number. Local area code = local cred, right?
I didn’t want my LA roots showing too loudly. I wanted to be taken seriously in this new chapter. So I kept the 818 for “personal,” using 503 for work—a quiet dual identity.
Also, rumor has it they don’t give out 818s anymore. A collector’s item in digit form. Sigh.
But over time, the lines between work and life blurred. Clients became friends. Friends became clients. Eventually, almost everyone was using my 503 anyway. One number for work, one for life? It stopped making sense. And honestly, I’m grateful for that blur. 👯♀️
Still, I held on—for more than half my life. It was the number my dad had saved for me, the only one he ever used. He passed away in 2017, just before I became a mom. I know he’ll never call again, but letting go of that number felt like letting go of him. Which I know sounds silly—but still.
So I kept it. Quietly. Sentimentally.
But I don’t need the number to hold it all anymore. Letting it go doesn’t mean letting go of me.
And as for my dad—I carry him everywhere. Not in an area code. He’s in the way I approach work, love, and loyalty. In the instinct I have to show up for people.
And if there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that he’d roll his eyes at me spending $40/month on sentimentality. He’d tell me to keep the memories, ditch the bill, and go buy a steak instead.
So here I am. Letting go of an old number that no longer serves me. Holding on to everything it meant. Still know every word to every song that ever played on KROQ in the late ’90s/early 2000s (iykyk).
If you’ve got me saved under anything else: I’m now officially just 503-748-9818.
