“And I'm not saying that adventure was easy, it was fucking hard, so hard.”
Lisa shares her journey to find herself in New York City and move on to the next big thing.
Chapter 1 | 5 min read
I am Lisa Jane Willard. I am an assistant professor of graphic design at the University of Tampa. So I live in Tampa, I have a small bungalow that I very old one that I'm rehabbing. recently got my first dog. So I love design. I love to travel. Oh, my favorite place to visit has been Amsterdam and the Netherlands. It's a life goal to live there for a while at some point. So yeah, I've traveled a lot, but somehow really connected with that city.
I’m proudest of leaving my marriage when it was time. We were together 30 years, and we had this great life that we built, and the kids and I just had a very deep yearning inside of me for a very long time that I needed to go off on my own. I needed to go, just find out who I am. That isn't related to mowing the lawn and taking kids to soccer. So I waited as long as I could. And I left, I had to go. One of my daughters had gone to college in Austin. My other two were in high school. And we've been really living between. We had an apartment in New York because my husband is a painter, ex-husband, I still call him my husband. He's an artist, a painter. So we always had a presence in New York, and my daughter was a child actor. And so we were always in New York, and I said, you know, let's just go to New York full time now.
So I sold a little bit mostly gave away everything in my house. And then it was the middle of the recession. So I really didn't make any money on my house. I sold it and sadly there's nothing from it. Yeah, we divorced. You know, divorce is an angry thing. But later we were finding we were really good friends for the duration. We have kids to raise and we are family. And so that worked out but I needed to go and make sure that I was strong, that I was valuable, that I had something to give. And you know I went to the heart of it. I went to New York City and worked and my daughter went to the performing arts school of fame, Fame High School, and my son ultimately went back to St. Louis to live with his dad. But yeah, I just needed to figure out like, I'm too much in mashed in this like Stepford Wives living in the, which, obviously, I've told you never fit me anyway.
I was yearning to go. And I just, you know, when I left that it was just like, so ready. And I'm not saying that adventure was easy, it was fucking hard, so hard. And then at some point I said, you know, I've really always wanted to get my master's degree, I always knew I wanted it. And there was never a time in my life. I worked in advertising, you know, 60 hours a week and race time to get kids from daycare and school, and it was insane. And when there was finally a point to leave it. I said, Yeah, it's time to get my master's degree. So my youngest daughter, and now go into college, and I'm finding myself in New York, and I'm looking around and my oldest daughter who had gone to school in Austin and had stayed never left, she said, You should come to Austin, I think you'll love it. And so I went there naively thinking I was going to go to UT, University of Texas. And my first week there, I went over and I met with someone and I said, Oh, god, this is not the degree I want. And I said, Well, I'm in Texas.
“I needed to go, just find out who I am. That isn‘t related to mowing the lawn and taking kids to soccer. So I waited as long as I could. And I left, I had to go.”
Lisa
I was teaching yoga, because of course, I teach yoga. And one of my friends there said, you know, I go to University of Texas State University, you should go check it out. And living in Austin, it's kind of like, Oh, no, no, Texas State that's no good. But I went down, and I had a really nice convo with Christine and Claudia. And I said, oh, this is exactly what I want. So at the end of that long, long story, my proudest achievement is to have gotten my master's degree at age 55. Yeah, me.
So I have a lot of life experience. But really all through my marriage and my own life, I just said, I'm going to be who I am in the sense that, you know, I lived in the neighborhood, I lived in like, upper-middle-class neighborhood, all the women were very much a certain way and dressed a certain way. And I was literally like my kids in overalls and bare feet in the street. And we were that bohemian family, you know, I had this long, crazy hair, and my kids had dirty feet. And everybody was like, those people. They're so different. And I was like, Yeah, but we have so much fun down here, you should come down.
People would sometimes, you know, we have parties all the time, we have this giant pool, and people come over and they're like, I love your house so much. I love the way you live. I'm like, Well, you could do it too. You don't have to be, you know, this certain structure because you live in this neighborhood, and you're expected to dress a certain way and be. Over the years. I've heard from so many people, especially after I left that and moved off on my own and did a lot of crazy stuff. People have said, I just admire you. And you're so brave, and I wish I could be like you. I'm like, No, no, no. Just do it. Go Be who you are. If you're bored, do something else. If you're sad, you need to leave if there's an adventure waiting for you, you need to go do it. Don't worship me in that way. Just let me be an example.
See More from Lisa
Chapter 2: Open-minds, open hearts
Lisa talks about raising her kids to be accepting and welcoming to all by creating an environment open to exploration.
Chapter 3: Enlightened in a dark room
Lisa discusses the differences between growing up queer and a more accepting culture today while reflecting back on micro-aggression and homophobia in college.