When I grow up I want to be…

When I was young, there were 3 things I spent a long time imagining I wanted to be:

First, Dolphin Trainer. I was a true kid of the 90s, okay? Everything I owned was dolphin, school folders, blankets, snow globes, the beanie babies. Ever read Madeleine L'Engle’s Ring of Endless Light? That’s the dream. Telepathic friend of dolphins, yes, please.

Second, Olympic Swimmer. Okay, now I tried real, real hard at this one. A dozen years of training, only milliseconds away from qualifying for nationals... At the end of the day, it wasn’t meant to be.

Third, an Architect.

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Now, I LOVED houses. I remember at 8 years old biking home from school at full speed just to catch the tail end of Trading Spaces — my 6 year old sister choking on dust blocks behind me. Sitting there in suspense, I would sketch home layouts to calm the nerves. Genevieve had done it again! Most vividly, I remember sketching a version of my adult bedroom in which I would incorporate a circular bed. This dream has yet to be realized.

So how did this dream die? Kid wants to be an architect, so why not? Well, I was “bad” at math. Rather, I was average with math, and I just didn’t love it. I was told by the adults architects need to be incredible with geometry and equations… and here I was a B student in math. (Hey, it was honors math at least)! The adults weren’t completely wrong. The architects in suits downtown Chicago are likely solving pages and pages of quadratic equations each day to hold up their skyscrapers. Looking back, designing homes inside and out was completely in reach for that kid; despite her lackluster skills in mathematics.

I would be remiss not to mention, my parents built quite a few custom houses. I remember peering over my mom’s shoulder paging through the builder leaflets — dozens and dozen of home layouts and colorful facades. How can one decide?

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Fast forward to today, Pike & Prairie has been stirring for at least five years now and there is a big, huge dream that I can’t shake off. One that belongs to the 8 year old girl on the bike. I still want to be an architect.

When I say that now, I know exactly what it means. No suits or quadratic equations. I want to design homes from scratch — original, beautiful, custom homes. After what I thought was just decades of doodling, there are a few plans I know won’t stay on the graph paper for long! As I’ve started working with real architects to put these visions on paper I’m in shock going over the renderings. What a crazy, wonderful dream to see a simple sketch become a house — a place people actually live!

Fingers crossed I’ll get to live in one soon!