I moved across the country to San Francisco two and a half years ago and I finally feel settled in. But you shouldn't trust me when I say that. I've been wrong too many times in the past.
What I didn't realize when I moved is that your relationship with a place is no different than your relationship with a partner in that every time you think you love them as much as you're capable, you wait a little longer and find out that an even greater level exists. Every six months for the last two and a half years, I've had that moment where I'm walking on the beach or playing my guitar in Golden Gate Park or shopping at Trader Joe's and think, "Oh, now I feel settled in." But in another six months I'll have that moment again and revise history to say I was wrong before and this time I mean it. And the problem is everyone always asks whether or not you feel settled in but no one ever tells you what that's supposed to feel like. You spend the first few months asking, "Is this it?" and then every month thereafter guessing that this must be it. But you don't know. You're only comparing against what you felt in the last place you lived, and who's to say you were settled in there?
What I had to learn was that "settling in" isn't a single finish line you cross. It's a series of checkpoints where you start off feeling like a weird growth on the place and end feeling like a part of the place itself. These were my stages of settling in over the last two and a half years.
1. I'm here and I'm alive.
Your boots are on the ground. You don't really know what's happening but you've arrived and you have your keys and the WiFi is set up and you saw a McDonald's around the corner that will do for dinner. You have to start somewhere.
2. I felt a connection to something.
When you're drawing plot diagrams in fourth grade, you learn that every story has an "Inciting Incident" that sets the plot in motion and leads into the rising action. Stage 2 is the Inciting Incident. It's the first time you feel some sort of spark of life and get any sense of belonging from anything in the new place. It's that moment where you make your first friend at college move-in weekend or walk into the coffee shop on the corner and say, "This is going to be my new spot." I think we all secretly go into every big move fearing that we'll never feel that spark of belongingness, so it's a big deal when you prove your amygdala wrong.
3. I'm in a rhythm.
The word "routine" gets thrown around a lot when talking about starting somewhere new but I think "rhythm" is more accurate. You've gone from a place of utter uncertainty to a place where you're feeling how the days and the weeks and the months ebb and flow. Things haven't gotten repetitive or mindless but they've gotten predictable. I would argue that "rhythm" is actually the goal much more than "routine" in this case. You don't want life to be a series of choreographed steps as much as you want it to be a beat you've learned to dance to.
4. I miss it when I'm gone.
I don't mean you miss the friends you have there when you're away. I don't mean you miss your bed or having your own bathroom or anything too lifestyle-oriented. I mean you miss the geographic place itself. You miss the little jolt of electricity you get when you pop out of the subway and see the skyline. You miss the sparkle of the riverwalk as the string lights reflect off the water. You miss that certain yellow haze you only see when the sunset seeps through the canopy of ficus trees covering the street. You miss the feeling of that place. I can point you to the exact moment I reached this stage. I was at Olympic National Park with some friends and we drove over to Rialto Beach on the coast of Washington, and as we walked around that beautiful beach and place, I thought to myself, "This is stunning, but God, I miss the beaches of San Francisco."
5. It feels like home.
It's funny how in these later stages I don't think you realize how your feelings toward a place are changing until you leave for a bit. It's sort of like how young kids are always growing but the parents don't fully realize it until the uncle that only comes around once a year shows up and goes, "My GOSH have they grown!" It sneaks up on you until you're away for a few weeks and then you realize on your flight back that what used to just feel like returning to San Francisco now feels like returning home. And you can't pinpoint when or how exactly that shift happened but you see the city out the window and think, "That...that's where I'm supposed to be."
6. I'm a part of this place.
Not only do you feel like you belong in that place but to some small extent you feel that place belongs to you too. You feel some ownership of it. You're no longer a tourist or a satellite resident but you're part of the fabric itself. You know the scenic route from Point A to Point B and how to tell exactly when the sunset is going to be really good and you go to that McDonald's for dinner again not because it's the only option you know of but because you know a lot of good restaurants and are comfortable enough with that fact to accept that sometimes you just want a McChicken.
The place is yours. Enjoy.
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