Liza
Liza is all about pushing the boundaries, challenging what is “normal” and saying no to bullshit. When something needs to get done, Liza will do it. She’s a strong leader, who you can look up to and count on. She’s also someone who has endured mental illness, done several dances with the unknown, and experienced the pitfalls of wanderlust. But as a result Liza has earned remarkable resilience and strength. She’s a passionate explorer and a loyal friend. Meet Liza. This is her story.
“Be who you are ladies. Because you are enough. Be strong, be patient, love your fellow women, and never let outside sources define your ‘normal’ for you.”
Liza in the snow, surrounded by mountains (her happy place)
P: Please introduce yourself!
L: Hi, I’m Liza and I’m a work in progress.
P: Describe or define yourself in your own words.
L: I have been sober for two years and two months and am a better person for it.
As a younger girl I used to think I would have it all together and have all the answers by 30 years old, when I was “all grown up.”
Now, in my late 20s, I realise that was a bunch of baloney.
I do not have it all together and I most definitely do not have all the answers, heck I barely even have the questions figured out. But I know better now than ever before, that that is okay. What we owe ourselves is not perfection, only improvement and effort. And sometimes, a little forgiveness.
Thanks to a bit of wanderlust, a desire for discovery and a knack for frugality, I have been lucky enough to see a few different corners of the world. I sometimes feel like Ford Prefect, trying to see the marvels of the Universe for less than 30 Altairian dollars a day.
Along my travels I have come to learn that perspective is everything. The more I see and experience, the more my perspective of reality grows, and the more my little place in this big wide world becomes clear.
P: What is your favourite thing about yourself?
L: I once had a moment of clarity while experiencing sensory overload in the middle of Times Square in New York City.
There were so many people, so many lights and sounds and cars and pigeons and stores, and so. many. people.
I was literally one in a million, and that spun me out for a moment. Hard.
I pulled my sweater up over my head and beelined to the quietest little bagel shop I could find (the bagels were terrible by the way, hence the seclusion).
I had to sit down a while and breathe deep as I thought about all the little humans on Earth going about their day and experiencing the world in 7.6 billion different ways.
I felt small, insignificant, irrelevant.
Now this could have taken me to a very existentially dark place, but somehow it didn’t.
Something in my head clicked introspectively, and for a moment it felt like a weight came off my chest.
Out of all those people, I was only one. And I had only one to live up to and impress. Myself.
I realised that I was never going to be important to all 7.6 billon people sharing this planet with me, nor did I want to be. I have only one story to write and it is my own, anything and everything I do or experience in my itty bitty lifetime is for me, and my journey.
I try to remember that moment every time I need some of that ever-important perspective. I try to live and behave to make life enjoyable for myself, and the few people around me I love. I need not adhere to societal norms or deadlines or expectations that do not enrich my story, or bring joy to my life. I try to put good out into the very small amount of the world I can reach, and have learnt to actively appreciate the good that comes back to me from that.
Because of this introspection I know myself quite well. And I get to know myself more every day and with every challenge I face.
I have dealt with mental health issues from a very young age. For a very long time I was not very nice to myself, I just wanted to be “normal”, and I betrayed myself in pursuit of that.
And while there are still some days I curse my anxieties and myself, there are now more moments where I think of them more like a superpower. I am healthier now, have learned how love who I am instead of apologising for her, and learned how to substitute unhealthy coping mechanisms and behaviours for healthy ones. I now cherish the level of self-awareness, critical thinking and contemplativeness that helps me navigate this convoluted world and manipulate the tricky parameters of reality to my advantage.
P: Tell us a story. Have you had an experience that’s defined you or made you stronger?
L: I recently have had to navigate one such tribulation, as like many I have recently had my entire life and future turned upside down by the effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic.
I was two weeks off achieving my Canadian Permanent Residency (for which I had to work very hard for 2 years at a very unrewarding job in a very male-dominated industry), and was about to commence my first ever five-year plan when the entire world changed.
Over the year of 2020 I lost my job, my Canadian status, my home, my car, my pets passed away, I had to say goodbye to my friends, go into isolation, and lose a majority of my savings chasing and waiting for a flight back to Australia. It took over 7 months, 4 cancelled flights, too much money, 40+ straight hours of transit and 2 weeks in a hotel quarantine room to get back to Australia.
I am still somewhat in mourning for the life that could have been and the life I left behind in Canada, but here is that perspective again to keep me grounded.
I am safe, healthy, and resilient as all hell. I will create a new five-year plan and I will bounce back from this blow.
In the time I have spent in isolation I have become more financially literate and started thinking about what other pathways are available to me now, and I am starting to come to terms with and even become excited about the alternative futures that may branch out from this hardship.
And while I may not be able to become a resident of Canada, I have left a huge piece of myself there, I miss it every day and I will find a way to return and keep it a part of my life. It’s going to be a challenge, but I wouldn’t bet against me.
If you had told me as a young girl all I would see and experience by the time I was “all grown up”, I doubt I would have believed the strength I would grow to have.
P: What is one piece of advice you’d give to your younger self?
L: If I could go back in time to meet that girl I would tell her:
“It’s going get harder before it gets easier, kid. You’re going suffer at the hands of your villains, circumstance, and even yourself. But keep fighting and keep your head up. Because you are stronger and smarter than you know, you are worthy of the love you will find, and you will learn to forgive yourself. I promise.”
P: Who is one woman that inspires you? What would you say to her if she were here now?
L: In moments of doubt, I like to think of Morticia Addams.
Although a fictional character, the ideals she spoke to me about being a woman are very real, I wish I could thank her.
I was a nervous little emo kid in my younger years, unsure why I didn’t quite fit in anywhere and wondering if there could possibly be anyone out there I could even relate to.
Then there was the Addams Family. To this day the organ and snaps of its theme calms me and reminds me there can be something wondrous and special in all that is weird and “altogether ooky”. That you don’t have to be “normal” to be worthwhile and beautiful.
Morticia is who she is unabashedly. Creepy and kooky, mysterious and spooky.
She is weird and wonderful and unapologetically proud of herself. She loves passionately and wholly. She is fiercely intelligent, honest, loyal and secure in her own skin.
Morticia is a queen.
P: What does being a woman mean to you?
L: Being that queen isn’t always easy, but we women have more power in us than we realise.
Women today are in a constant state of healing. Healing from trauma, from generational curses, from insults and catcalls and subjugation and underestimation. Healing from the consistent energy, grit and determination it takes to exist and thrive in the world as a woman. But does it make us fragile and tired? No. Much like a healed scar is stronger than the original skin, we are stronger, more complex, more powerful.
We battle on and we scream to ourselves and to those around us “WE CAN DO BETTER. WE WILL MAKE IT GET BETTER.”
We are slowly healing from the patriarchal idea that women must be in competition with one another because there are not enough seats at the table for all of us. We are finding strength in each other and lifting each other up, passing brawn and resistance and progress to each other and to the next generation rather than complicity, apathy and obedience.
It is all this constant healing that is making us more sure of ourselves, of our female community and the things we can achieve as individuals and together, and is helping us shed the silence, insecurity and uncertainty of self that has made us quiet martyrs of the patriarchy for generations.
Being a woman means strength and resilience. But it also means challenge.
Challenges, trials and pitfalls you will have to face that those around you may not, all based on a presence or lack of a Y chromosome. These challenges used to frustrate and fatigue me, but I have come to learn that each one I face and conquer has made me a stronger person, has added to my character and has proven to me as much as those around me that I really am as strong, intelligent and capable (if not more so), as anyone else at the table.
She knows herself better than he knows himself. Because she has to.
Each one of these challenges we rise to as women is a chink in the armour of a flawed normality which we can one day vanquish and rebuild. Together.
Be who you are ladies. Because you are enough.
Be strong, be patient, love your fellow women, and never let outside sources define your "normal" for you.
“Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.”