When with friends, family, co-workers, the most popular question that goes around is "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?"

That question always gave me the feeling of when you stand up too quickly, and the black spots are blurring your vision while you're mindlessly grasping for walls to hold onto. In middle school, I thought everyone just gets through high school, then goes to college, then gets the job of their choice, then marriage, etc. Life was supposed to be all mapped out.

I got sick when I was fifteen, and my response to my favorite question was "hopefully dead." When my friends started applying for colleges, I wasn't even attending my school anymore, but just taking a few classes at the local community college. It helped me loosen my schedule and get away from the things that were making me worse. By senior year, the five-year plan became, "maybe college?" And as I got better, I had my sight set on a prestigious private school close to home, so that I could continue to focus on recovering and keeping life simple. Unfortunately, although I got in, financial aid and scholarships were not options for me. Again, my five-year plan changed.

My first "big girl" job lasted only three months when management changed, and I moved out of my mom's house. I was close to being discharged from treatment, making a decent wage for a nineteen-year-old, and I had a beautiful apartment with the person that I expected to spend my life with. Losing a job is scary, especially for one that you sacrificed your class schedule for, and when for the first time, you're reliant on that job to pay for rent and bills. The whole "five-year plan" thing was going way off course once again.

One of the most significant hurdles I faced was living on my own. Going from a fantasy idea that the person I met when I was fifteen would be my soulmate, to suddenly taking a semester off of school and being single for the first time in over five years should have been daunting or discouraging. This sudden and huge shift in my life only made me realize, "screw this, it's impossible to plan so far into the future."

I have goals, and I know what I want out of life, but no longer do I expect to delegate segments of my years into what is supposed to happen next. If I told myself five years ago that today I would be in love with someone else, living with two roommates, and graduating college with an English degree, it would have felt like a punch in the gut to know that my vision for life had changed so much in reality. I can't say where I'll be in five years. I know that I'll need to find a good job within the next few weeks, and come June I'll want to be living on my own once again, but besides that, who's to know? I'm happy in this moment, and I'll strive to always be better no matter where I end up in the next five years.