Today we’d like to introduce you to Tania Kawana.
Hi Tania, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Everything I am, including where I am, I owe to my abnormal, adventurous upbringing by my amazing parents. I’m from a small town near the Texas coast called Seadrift. I was born in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, but have spent the majority of my adult life in Texas. My parents loved to travel so I spent a lot of my childhood experiencing some pretty diverse places like: Sinaloa, Mexico (where my mom is from), North Carolina, Virginia, Florida, and Massachusetts. We spent many months at a time on the road living out of the back of a van. My parents & I settled in Seadrift, Texas when I was in 3rd grade. Traveling around so much as a kid, it really sticks with you. Because of my unusual upbringing, I’m pleased to admit that I’m terminally afflicted with the travel bug. I remember growing up and my dad showing me dozens and dozens of photo albums from all of the amazing places we traveled together, and pictures from his travels before me too. Being in this sort of environment always left me with a longing to see the world. I always felt like I could never sit still, not just physically speaking, in life too. I felt like ultimately I could never put down roots anywhere. I devoted my time and creative passion into various hobbies. I adore reading, another novelty I picked up from my dad. I’m hoping to one day be able to publish a fantasy & dystopian novel of my own, along with a collection of poems I’ve been working on.
After graduating high school, I left my small town behind and ventured off to Texas State University in San Marcos. I had a difficult time deciding on a major, I’ve always wanted to be a writer, but of course society tells us “That’s your hobby, how are you going to make money consistently”. So like any other 19 years old daddy’s girl would do, I called my father and asked for advice. He immediately told me he thought I should major in Advertising. It combined writing and storytelling with photography and videography. The nerd in me was screaming THIS IS WHAT YOU’VE BEEN WAITING FOR and the narcissist in me was sneering Why the hell didn’t you think of this yourself do you even know yourself at all?! It was then that I committed to pursuing my Bachelor’s degree in Adverting and Mass communication with a minor in English. My expected graduation date was in 2016, but I couldn’t complete my final semester for so many reasons and dropped out. My dad had recently been diagnosed with cancer at the time and I took a long “break” from school. My mental health spiraled being away from school, not knowing what the hell I was going to do with myself and my future. I was living in a city where I knew no one, working a serving job in Buda to cover rent for one bedroom apartment in South Austin. Two weeks after taking a serving job and deciding that I was going to stick it out here rather than return home, I met my husband. Literally, my other half and match in every way. Josh gave me all of the support I needed mentally, emotionally, and financially to be able to go back to Texas State and complete my bachelor’s degree. My second go around at school, I took a photojournalism class that I now realize was the final piece of the puzzle for discovering an outlet to express my creativity. In this class, I was able to rent a DSLR camera directly from Texas State and learn photography and photojournalism from a kickass professor. I had such a blast finding local events and activities on campus to take pictures of and just be involved in other people’s happiness. Every week there was now an assignment I actually looked forward to completing. It blew my mind constantly and I knew that finally, I was on to something here.
And then, because all great things in my life must come to an end – the pandemic happened. My senior year returning BACK to school after four years and a global pandemic happens. I was wrecked emotionally so say the least. I wasn’t prepared to enter the workforce, I knew that. My senior year was supposed to be me getting to soak up all of the resources and do all of the schmoozing and networking to have a job ready and lined up when I graduated. None of that of course happened, it was all we could do as a country just to survive the effects of the virus both mentally and physically. The fact that everything was extremely political only made things worse. I found myself sifting through hours of online bullshit written by an angry someone miles away whose only purpose was to make someone else see how truly unhappy they were and why. It was during the pandemic that I reached a point where I decided I was tired of seeing all of the “negative”. If everyone else was going to spew hatred and negativity, I had to create my own happiness for ME and for others who felt similarly. If I couldn’t find the light then I was going to be the light, damnit. I started taking pictures of beautiful scenery at first and sharing, but of course people can only engage with content like that for so long. Ultimately I realized that people wanted a face and a person to connect with along the way. I decided I would start sharing my life and creating content for the places that I went online, with the only goal being to inspire and distract people from whatever misery they were in. I wanted to give just one person something to look forward to. I did it for me as much as anyone, even now. Having new events to experience and exploring Austin is what’s keeping me going right now, mentally. I followed only a handful of travel bloggers and content creators at the beginning of the pandemic, but when I looked at the content they were putting out, it was happy. It made me happy to not be focused on the terrors of the world, to instead focus on the beauty.
Now I’m not trying to live with my head in the sand here by any means, I think you have to see the bad to really appreciate the good, but I was at a place mentally where my brain was a swirling vortex of doom. When I decided to start creating my own content it literally gave me purpose to want to live. To participate in life again. I saw all of these women supporting each other online, sharing their stories, and just getting really honest about whatever they were passionate about. I knew I wanted to be around those women and be a part of that community. I have so much passion for traveling and for new experiences, I knew I had finally found a community where I could share my story, share my life and dreams, with girls who were just like me. I’ve been working on a blog that’s finally almost ready this upcoming year, and I hope to be able to eventually create content from home and travel as my full-time job. I’m nowhere near where I want to be but hey, you’ve gotta start somewhere! I hope to see the world with my other half and write about my experiences along the way one day. Josh and I both love food, so a YouTube channel for traveling and trying foods from around the world is definitely a dream of ours. Josh supports what I do 100%, it’s so amazing to have a partner that not only believes in you- but who is also willing to shoot your content for you too when the tripod just can’t get the job done, lol. All jokes aside, I literally would not have been able to accomplish any of this without him. Josh is going to be learning photography this next year too, and I’m positive he’s going to be way better at it than I am so I can’t wait to see what the two of us create together. Until my online endeavors are more fruitful, I’m working as a Social Media Manager around Austin for local businesses and brands. I’m always looking for new opportunities and people to work with, my passion is helping people bring their stories to life.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
It definitely has not been a smooth road. There hasn’t even been a road, just this scraggly path I’m stumbling down blind while trying to understand the bigger picture. It’s hard being taken seriously sometimes, there’s so many negative stigmas about blogging and content creation. It stills blows my mind that people can be so judgemental about a field they know literally nothing about. My hope is to shed a little light on why people actually WANT to do what I’m doing for a living. We’re living in a time where Creators are able to reach a mass audience from HOME and be compensated for their work, it’s pretty amazing. It’s also strange at times to realize most of your support comes from people you’ve never even met in person, but I’m learning to roll with that.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m known for creating bright, vibrant content around Austin while sharing affordable fashion finds along the way. I love sharing how to live beautifully and affordably. Society can be really overwhelming at times and for some reason, we all go through this phase of wanting to “keep up” with our peers and find ourselves spending unreasonable amounts of money on things that will only temporarily satisfy us. News flash, unless you’re rich, you probably can’t afford that Gucci belt, those Prada sunnies AND be able to afford to take the time off work and travel at your leisure. If you can afford to do that, please contact me because I’ve been trying to find the rich parents that abandoned me at birth for like 27 years now. All jokes aside, I’ve learned throughout this process that it’s impossible to have everything. We make choices and sacrifices every single day based off of the funds and time that we have available to us. That being said, I don’t think that people wanting to feel beautiful and important will ever change. However, we can change what we think makes us beautiful and also the monetary value we assign to that. When I tell you that shopping at thrift stores changed so much for me, I truly mean it. The majority of my feed posts are dresses that are thrifted from Goodwills around Austin- and you wouldn’t think it based off of what you see. People are always asking how I can afford to do all of the things that I do AND spend money on clothes, and although most of that reason is my husband Josh, a big change I’ve made this past year has been to cut spending on material possessions and instead invest in experiences. I think what sets me apart from others is that I’ll leave this bullshit society behind in a second and not feel bound to jobs or circumstances people are normally bound by. I’m so thankful and lucky that I found a partner that’s willing to do the same.
We love surprises, fun facts and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
Something surprising people might not know about me is that I’m actually pretty introverted. I may give off total Leo vibes with my wild hair and vibrant personality, but people don’t realize that it takes me literally hours of self-motivation every day just to function on a basic level. I’m really bad at taking care of myself lately. The pandemic really messed up my routine, schedule, and any sense of normalcy I had going on. Some mornings I still struggle with getting out of bed and remembering why I have purpose and what I need to accomplish that day. I’m trying and failing to develop a healthy daily routine for myself, which overall has led to some poor mental health and poor decision making in my daily life. However, every day is a new opportunity, and I’m just trying to allow myself the time and grace to process my life and the rough few years it’s been. I’d love to bring any type of awareness to mental health issues and how painful it can be to live with a negative mentality. Our brains are literally THE most important organ in our bodies, and they don’t get nearly enough credit. I think our education system has completely failed us in several ways, one of the more predominant ways being the lack of education concerning mental health and its effects.
Contact Info:
- Email: Tanialikeslasagna@gmail.com
- Website: https://tanialikelasagna.wordpress.com/
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/Tania.like.lasagna
Image Credits:
Tania Kawana (myself) Joshua Grajczyk (my husband)
