FOUR YEARS LATER

I have been here for four years already.

Weeks ago during a road trip stop at Ruby Beach, I met a charming middle-aged couple from Michigan. They shared that they were enjoying a leisurely exploration of the Pacific Northwest after their two children had recently graduated from university. He asked me how long out of college it has been, and I told him four years. He smiled and then asked if I am where I want to be yet.

I wasn’t sure how to answer. Each year since graduating has pushed me further and further away from the inchoate post-college ideas of my future. Even then, I never had a firm plan beyond a GRE test score and the desire for the space that I felt I needed to grow—however long that would take, whatever growth could look like, and wherever that may be. I moved here tinged with transiency and dreams of fertile soil that would allow me to bloom new colors, until it would be time to seek light somewhere else.

But four years is too long of a tenure to feel transient anymore. Settling into my home in Tacoma feels like the antithesis of the rootless upwardly mobile millennial experience; of moving among major metropolitan areas in pursuit of culture, community, opportunities, and a fleeting new American dream.

Four years later and I’m still here. Grad school never happened. Friends have since moved away and planted roots in disparate pockets of the country. Wedding bells are ringing. Bills keep growing. Family is aging. Even with four years worth of triumphs and heartaches and boring days and vibrant stories, my trajectory continues to evolve in unexpected ways. Just how well can I elucidate my future if it keeps changing? I won’t sugarcoat the bitterness of growing pains.

Am I where I want to be yet?

The couple curiously stood there, sparking with awe at the dramatic landscape around us as I searched for words. They were so wonderful to talk with—so gregarious and attentive—and I dared not temper their ebuillance with the grit of a long reflection. I looked up at them and grinned.

It has been an interesting four years, I tell them. It has not been quite what I thought it would be… but I’m okay with that.