Life Plans, 2003–2026
Boobless Wonder #3
Every January since 2003, I’ve made a drawing called a Life Plan. Except for years when I didn’t do it at all. My nearest and dearest know all about this practice of mine. I never thought that I would be sharing these but here they are. Ta dah!
These Life Plans aren’t resolutions. They are thinking tools or ways to hold attention, desire, worry, logistics, and hope all at once. Looking back now, almost 25 years later, I can see how our lives have shifted and ebbed: dissertation finished, jobs searched for and found, grant goals, intense exhibition years, ambitious plans, wild art ideas, failures, debt that we didn’t get out of until almost 20 years later when we moved out of the city, aspirational trips that never happened, tidying that truly never happened. Some years are exuberant and some are scarce- just hoping to keep going.
Some commitments show up again and again over the years, especially staying connected to people I love. Some plans just roll over forever.
DJ, my girlfriend, has made these beside me and (with permission) I’m sharing some of them here too. Some years her plans run alongside mine in places, offering a parallel timeline…steadier in some ways, different in others. Her drawings are incredible!!! I love them and they kill me.
I’m sharing these drawings here as an archive of attention over time. If you look through them, I’m curious what you notice. What repeats, what disappears and what feels familiar? These are niche, a little unhinged, and surprisingly revealing. Maybe they are only interesting to me. If you are curious, scroll as far as you want and tell me which parts resonate, especially if you also have the desire to plot it all out. 2026 is a threshold year for me: my first year breastless. The Boobless Wonder series continues. Same ritual, different body.
What’s up with these life plans? Are they about hope, or control, or dreaming, or terror? Looking back at them now, I feel many things.
The oldest one, from 2003, begins with a horrible breakup that turned my life upside down (though you wouldn’t really know this from the drawing). It is also the year I got together with my beloved DJ. I remember making that first life plan, encouraged by my friend Christina, lying on my stomach on a rug in the living room of my apartment on Dundas West in Toronto, as she gently nudged me toward the future and away from heartache, toward life. Thank you so much Zeidy.
What a great visual practice of list making and manifesting. It's also cool to see them throughout the years. Funny how heart ache can bottom out your life, but make you truly reflect on what it is you want. Very inspiring.. i might just do this with my partner as we are making future plans. (What happened in 2013?)
Hi Vanessa, Thank you so much for your feedback. I'm glad that these drawings are interesting to you. 2013 was the year that we did our enormous Killjoy's Kastle: A Lesbian Feminist Haunted House project. It didn't open until October that year but the pre planning and organizing and making had me very very ovewhelmed so it shows in my life plan. All I could do was.....nothing!