.

22. Where do you see yourself in 5 years? 10 years? 15 years?

I don't like this game. I've never liked this game. Because in my mind, the rule of this game is that you can only project into the future based off of where you are in the present- as if nothing in your life were to change but the progression of time. You can't give yourself dream jobs you aren't preparing for. You can't pretend that you're simply going to wake up ten years in the future well-adjusted and happy if you aren't right now.  So usually, when I answer these questions, my responses lean towards the bleaker side of the spectrum- clearly, I'm not exactly what you'd call optimistic. 

But while I usually- and generously- describe myself as a realist, tonight all my thoughts are solidly negative. 
I guess that's what happens when you have to stop taking your crazy pills. And then you get cancer. 

Tonight I wonder if there will be 15 more years. 


So here's what's going to happen instead:

I'm going to write something in this blog, because....because. Tomorrow I'm going to go to the hospital. Maybe again the day after that, and the week after that. I'm going to get better, lots and lots and lots of better. In a few months I'll move to SLC and live in a cheap, meaning crappy, apartment. I'll find a job that doesn't involve being yelled at all day, I'll finish my degree. I'll make friends. Lots of friends. I'll go to concerts and clubs and potlucks and parties. I'll get another job- a better one, one with people and pretty dresses. There will be bad days. There will be good days. There will be a boy who calls me pretty and laughs at my jokes and wants to hold my hand just all of the time. When we get married, I will wear my mother's dress and my hair will look great in the pictures. We will laugh a lot and we will dance in the kitchen.  We will have four children. The first girl will have my middle name. We'll move- maybe to Boston, give our children an accent and a baseball team. I'll paint the kitchen yellow and the living room blue. There will still be dancing- always dancing. There will be church on Sunday and fireworks on the fourth of July. There will still be bad days and hard times- but in the end, we'll be furiously happy. 

And that is what's going to happen.

Because that is what has to happen.