mansion apartment shack house
the crumpled scraps that outline my lives not lived
Over the weekend, my BFF Evie Carreira and I published a version of a game that we’ve played for as long as I can remember. This is a game to predict the future. A game to predict OUR future. As kids, we were obsessed with this adult idea of ourselves. Who would we marry? What would we do? What car will we drive? Where will we live? Who will we become?
We set out to create a template for MASH that highlighted aspects of adulthood that we never considered when we were children. Our insecurities, our hopes, our secrets, our realities. During sleepovers, the looseleaf three-hole-punched paper and milky pens outlined some two-dimensional future. A future of stasis and certainty — often with double digit numbers of children.
Evie’s doodles and illustrations bring me back to those sleepover parties, or the down time between soccer games at a tournament, or free periods in school. As a child, all I ever wanted was to grow up. This was my fantasy: a life that was determined by who I married or what car I drove or my profession. As an adult [extremely tempted to insert quotation marks here, but will refrain], I understand that these factors contribute to a life, sure. But I understand that I am not defined by them, or limited by them, or fulfilled even. Life is about searching, about always fantasizing about some later version of yourself. Play MASH, imagine a future, laugh at yourself, what you believed then, what you believe now, what you might laugh at in fifteen, twenty, fifty years.
Thank you to Aaron Burch & HAD for accepting this wacky piece!
Since you asked - here are my results:
Kelsey lives in a house at the edge of the earth. She married the one who saved her, and they have two children (plates are sold in sets of four for a reason). Her career is nothing like she thought it would be and she is overpaid. She believes in the Pittsburgh Steelers and has been divorced five times. Once, she was featured in the local paper after she survived a bear attack. The article is framed at the heart of her home. She is deeply insecure about not living up to someone else’s idea of her, and therefore, will ultimately die alone/misunderstood.
Send me yours! Lots of love to Evie Carreira for this fun collab. Enjoy this actual pic of the two of us making art .
Awesome!