Getting Lost, Finding Belonging, and Living Authentically

Tracy Smith and I trace how a one-way ticket to Iceland opened a lifelong practice of choosing ourselves, building belonging from the inside out, and letting imperfect trips change more than itineraries. Tracy shares candid stories from panic in Reykjavik to deep friendships in Vietnam that redefined courage and connection.

• learning to say yes to yourself without “reinvention”
• fear, airports, and the pause that finds the right door
• belonging as an inner practice, not sameness
• solo travel, movement, and making conversation easier
• Vietnam friendships that grew beyond the tour
• modeling boundaries and choices for our kids
• embracing messy trips and small first steps
• book details, website, and Substack links
• future plans: gorilla trekking in Uganda, dreams of Petra

If you would like to help fund my caffeinated exploration and buy me a coffee, click the support the show link in the show notes and I will report back on what I find

You can find Tracy HERE

https://tracysmithauthor.com/

Transcript

Opening Theme & Host Setup

Tracy 0:00

And so I don't think I've reinvented myself so much as I have learned how to say yes to myself. I don't think that's something I was able to do before I started traveling. I didn't I didn't know how to. I was too busy trying to meet everybody else's expectations.

Mary’s Travel Philosophy

Introducing Tracy And Her Book

Mary 0:21

For centuries, the phrase shrinking violet was used to diminish women, to suggest we were meant to be small and meek. But in nature, violets are anything but weak. They're resilient, beautiful, and essential to the ecosystem. Hi, I'm Mary Rothwell, licensed therapist, and each week I sit down with women who remind us that being compared to a violet isn't an insult. It's a testament to strength, endurance, and the power of taking up space and living by your true nature. If you're ready to stop shrinking and start thriving, you're in the right place. Hey violets, welcome to the show. I've traveled a decent amount. I haven't yet been to every state in the U.S., but I think I have fewer than 10 left to visit. I've been to Europe several times, stuck a toe into Canada twice, and have been to Central America a few times. My favorite trips were the ones where the most mundane situations felt magical. I hiked 220 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail to attain a view of Mount Shasta that can only be achieved from that vantage point. My feet were bleeding, and I was wearing the same clothes as I had for the past 100 miles, but it was glorious. I was rowed across the Rio Grande in the back of a pickup truck turned boat from Texas to the tiny town of Buquias, Mexico, where I had the best tamales, three for one U.S. dollar, and I bought a handmade bracelet from a little girl holding a three-legged dog. I tumbled out of a barely stopped car along a back road of Ireland to frantically try to get a bee out of my tangled hair. I got it out, but not before it stung me. And then we continued on the way back to our Airbnb, which was a tree house on a lovely farm where the homemade breakfast is something I still think about. I've never been much of a pre-packaged trip kind of girl. I like creating my own adventure. I love staying long enough in a new place that I develop my own routine, including where I get my morning coffee, and I prefer the roads less traveled when exploring. Going to new places opens my mind in a way that few other things can, except maybe an amazing work of fiction. My guest today will likely agree with all of this, but when she made her own momentous decision to book a one-way trip to Iceland, she probably didn't anticipate the myriad of impacts that decision would have. Tracy Smith is a memoirist, solo traveler, and storyteller whose debut book, The Purpose of Getting Lost, chronicles her journey from decades of pretending and people-pleasing to rediscovering herself across continents. She uses her global adventures to explore belonging, courage, midlife reinvention, and what it really means to choose yourself. Welcome to No Shrinking Violets, Tracy. Hi, Mary. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. I am very much looking forward to hearing all about your adventures, but I always start with what I call flashbulb moments. And I'm guessing you have a lot of them. But a flashball moment is really when you think back over your life, those things that kind of stand out as if it was a picture in time, where your life went in a different direction where it really had an impact. So when you think back over all your adventures or all the things you've been through, what are some of the major flashbulb moments that got you to where you are now?

Flashbulb Moments That Changed Course

Tracy 3:45

Yeah, that's really interesting. And I actually think we have to go back like three decades. And um probably that first moment was I booked a one-way fair to um one-way flight to California. And I had just graduated from college, and I remember saying to my family, um, I'm going to California tomorrow. And they said, When are you coming back? And I was like, Well, it's a one-way ticket. And I'm not coming back. And that was back in 1995. And um I never went back. I mean, I went back to visit, but I never, I never went back to live. And it completely changed my life because I think that had I not gotten on that flight and left California, I could envision the life, my life would have become very different. Maybe it would have been more like my mom's, or maybe more like my sister's. And that's their life. We have very different lives, you know. I so um, but it so it would have been very different. That's probably one of the big ones. Um, another one that happened before kind of these adventures, and that's just because they're just so important to my story, was um back in 1999, I went back home back to Buffalo for Christmas. And I well, I was very welcomed by my family, and I'm one of eight children, so you know, a big family. I was very welcomed. Um, but everybody was too busy to spend any time with me. And so on Christmas Day, like I had been looking forward to this going back and seeing my family, and maybe I don't know what I I don't really know what I expected, but I didn't get whatever it was. And so instead of staying in Buffalo, I think I had been was supposed to be there maybe another week. I don't really remember. I know I took a greyhound bus back to Colorado that night, and it was um that particular event was so transformative that I decided that day that I never wanted to spend another Christmas alone. And it ended up becoming that when I was getting divorced and I had young children, that the only deal breaker in my divorce was that Christmas Day would always be my day. We weren't sharing it, I was never rotating it, I was not going it did not matter. Christmas Day was always my day, and so it was such a transformative moment that to this day I've been divorced for 12 years. My children are 24, 21, and almost 20. We still do Christmas Day is with mom. So it really like setting the stage for you know really transformative moments, those were two really big ones. And then we get to that third one, which is getting on that airplane to Iceland. And probably the transformation was the day that I decided I was going on that trip, where I just kind of was like, I want to go too, and I booked a f a flight. But when I actually got on the airplane, it was like a whole new world opened up for me. It was probably one of the most magical things that had ever happened to me without even really knowing that something magical was happening.

Mary 7:10

Yeah.

Tracy 7:11

Does that make sense?

Leaving Home To Escape Small Boxes

Mary 7:13

It does make sense. And I certainly want to explore it more. So I worked a long time with young adults. And when I worked with high school students, they would often have that urge like, I don't just want to go to the college in the town, or I don't just even want to go a couple states away. I want to do something much bigger than that. And I don't know that we can always rationally figure out why. And I think when you talk about when you went back and had that experience at Christmas time, it probably had something to do with that, I'm guessing. But when you made the choice to buy the one-way ticket to California, do you know where that came from? Like what do you think made you do that?

Tracy 7:53

I think that I think that there were parts of it that I had fear of what my life would look like if I had stayed in Buffalo. And at this point, by the time I left for California, um, I had already realized that I had discovered wanting to go somewhere and do something. Like I had discovered that in college. Um, I was an avid reader when I was younger. So like places were really interesting to me. And then when I got to college, um I my eyes were really opened up to a much bigger world than Buffalo. And Buffalo back in the 90s, the 80s and 90s, it was a heavily segregated city in um the north. And so for me, like, you know, my entire worldview at that time had been shaped by this kind of what I only see people who look like me and who act like me and who feel like who feel like me, even if I didn't feel like I was a part of them. That's what I saw. And so in college, I wanted to join the Peace Corps and they didn't want me. Um, you know, they said, No, you you need to have some skills. And of course, I was like a 19-year-old who had no skills and who had never even left Buffalo at that point. Um, and so they were kind of like, no, we don't want you. But I think that was like the start of being like, oh wow, there's a big world out there and I want to see it. And so California, I think was just the opportunity to to to do something, to go somewhere to not, you know, I I tell my I could tell my family now that had I not left for California, I probably would have ended up like my family. You know, my mom still lives in poverty, and I suspect maybe that would have been my trajectory as well. And it, you know, I completely changed it. It was, it was obviously it was a life-changing experience for me, it was a life-changing experience.

Mary 9:46

Yeah. Well, I think it's interesting that you talk about recognizing that everybody around you looked like you. Because I think on one hand, we often seek that out because it's comfortable. But along with that, I love the idea of belonging because I think we can tend to think we belong with people like me, like what I look like, what I talk like, how I think. But it sounds like for you, you sought this idea of belonging in a different way. Can you talk a little about what belonging means to you and how that factored into your decisions?

Belonging As An Inner Practice

Tracy 10:24

Yeah, you know, and that's really interesting because um I was writing this piece the other day about sameness and how um like the places that I tend to go. And um, I tend to stay away from the Western countries. I've only been to a few of them. Um, you know, my my trips have I've spent a lot of time now in Southeast Asia, um, time in Africa, I've spent time in um in South America. So there's always a part of me that wonders a little bit like what am I seeking by going to these places where obviously I don't physically fit in, right? Like I'm I'm completely different. And for me, and and even more interesting is because I think where the belonging comes in is in my regular everyday life, but back when I was a child, all the way until even now, I've never really felt like I fit in. Like I'm always kind of pretending to fit in. And you know, I I tell people I'm socially awkward and I don't like my friends, people who say they're my friends will be like, well, you're really intense and you're a little too much for us. So like I'm I think part of it has to do with, and you know, this is me like always trying to make sense of these things, is that maybe I go for the physical differences because then it helps with also like the emotional and mental differences that I know already exist. And so now I can really just be different and it's okay because otherwise, when you look like somebody, maybe they also expect you to be like them. And since I'm not, it really was hard for me to fit into that, to fit into whatever it was I was supposed to be doing. So I this journey of trying to belong of trying to fit in has led me to a space of being like, no, the belonging is something I feel inside. And it doesn't matter if the if people like look like me or feel like me or think like me because it's just me presenting myself, and then they accept me as myself. And so that's kind of where I that's where I feel like I have found so much of my belonging is in the anonymity of being in these places where nobody knows me. Nobody knows me at all. And yet I'm finding incredible community and confidence to be who I am, the freedom to kind of to to do these things because nobody knows me. Yeah, it's really, I don't know. It's I don't know. I don't yeah, I wish I knew how to explain it even more. I really do.

Mary 13:02

Well, it's it's really cool. I think when you talk about going places where my first thought is, my God, you don't know the language. But you know, I think you do it anyway. And I think those are the things that stop people. They'll think about what the problem might be. You know, what if I get lost? What if I can't communicate what I need? And I think, you know, people do it all the time, right? There's there's apps now and there are all those things, but you must have felt initially, especially with the Iceland trip, they I mean they speak English there, but did you have like fear that you had to push through?

Tracy 13:42

So it's kind of funny because you know, when I before I left, before until I get to the airport, so every moment up to the airport, I was confident. I mean, I was probably a little cocky in fact. Like, I was like, how hard can this be? I you get on an airplane, I'm gonna go, I don't know, get on some buses. I I don't know. I I really was like, I mean, uh, I went there without knowing how to work my phone. I went there with absolutely no local currency, no idea how to get local currency. I just kind of was like, Well, I got credit cards, like what's the big deal? I mean, it was, I was so I had so much confidence that when I got into Iceland and I was walking in that airport and I couldn't find my bus. That's when the first real like I was like, oh my God, what am I doing? Like, what are you doing here, Tracy? You don't, you don't even like know how to use your phone. I didn't even know how to dial on my phone, let alone how to use my phone. And so I think like, you know, the it didn't hit me that I was terrified until I actually got into Iceland and I was like, I really don't know what I'm doing, and I really don't think I should be here by myself. But I was, and I had to make it work.

Mary 15:06

Yeah, it's almost like a movie. Like I'm almost picturing you like this getting on the plane, and you're like, Woo, then all of a sudden you're like, holy shit, what am I gonna do now?

Panic, Problem-Solving, And Free Data

Tracy 15:16

I mean, it was I yeah, kind of, because you know, I'm like in the airport, and you know, at this point, like I had been to you know, 30 odd states, maybe 35. My kids, I've taken my kids a lot of places. I mean, I had a lot of confidence to be like, look, I can wrangle three children at Disney World. Like, I can do anything. You know, this is this is nothing, this is just me. I'm only in responsible for myself. And so I think, you know, and then I'm sitting in the airport. Now, granted, I was at Chicago O'Hare and it was my first time flying out of Terminal 5. And so I was kind of entranced by all these uniforms. It was the first time seeing like the beautiful uniforms of the foreign airlines, right? The non-American airlines, because our airlines all wear really boring blue, red, white, and blue. All I think every single one of them do. And so, um, for me, it that I was just in awe at all of it. And then I got on the airplane and I was like, oh, this is kind of like, especially going to Iceland, because it's not like when I was flying in Asia and I was the only blonde uh with pale skin on the flight. I'm on a flight to Iceland and everybody looks like me, you know, and the everything's in English, they're given all the directions. You know, it's really easy to forget that you're crossing an ocean and going to another country. And I think I became really comfortable as that was happening, you know, and as I was sleeping and like, you know, relaxing on the plane. I think I just was really comfortable. So it really wasn't until I get into the airport. And even then, like going through passport control, like the people in front of me, I just kind of followed, followed the crowds and the, you know, there's airport people kind of guiding you to say, oh, go this way, you know, making sure everybody gets the right way. And I was doing good all the way to that point, and it wasn't until the crowd went one way because they all had bags, and I didn't have any bags because I had carried mine on because I was I was a traveler, like that's my first trip. I was a traveler, so I had everything I needed with me. And the next thing you know, like I can't follow them, and I'm in the middle of this really small airport in Rykovic. It's a small airport, and I have no idea where I'm going. And that was like that for me was my first real sense of terror or like, what are you doing? You are in another country, you don't know how to find your bus, you have no money, you haven't eaten, you don't know how to use your phone, and you you don't speak the language. And what are you what are you doing here legitimately?

Mary 17:54

So, all right, everybody's thinking it. What did you do? I walked in circles for 30 minutes.

Tracy 18:00

I just kept walking in circles. I mean, it was it was literally the most insane thing because I walk I kept walking in circles, and like I said, it's a very small airport, and in the center of the airport is kind of like this. Um, I can even remember like this, um, where they have benches kind of around almost like a tree, but I don't think it was a tree in the center, but there's like benches, and then there's the concierge desk off to the side, and I kept looking, hoping somebody would be at the desk and nobody's there. And so I'm just walking in circles and I'd walk out one door. So there was a set of doors that I had noticed right away. Um, this other set of doors, which are the doors I needed to go out, were kind of like hidden in the back. So I walk out the set of doors that I can see, and I'm walking and I'm walking, and I'm kind of like, okay, these don't look like my buses. I try to ask a bus driver and he's like, no, no, not mine. And I'm like, okay, I don't, I don't really know. Like, I'm I go back inside, I start walking. At one point, I turn on my phone, but I'm afraid of the roaming expenses because you know, 20 years ago, when you hear roaming in international calls, you're like, oh my God, your phone's going, it's gonna be so expensive. So I turn it on, and as quickly as I turn it on, I turn it off because I'm afraid of these charges. I go back inside, 30 minutes, walking in a circle. Finally, I don't remember if the concierge they must have told me like it's over there, and then I must have found like the door over there, and I finally walk out, and there's a whole nother set of buses sitting out there, and there's the bus. And I I go and I get on the bus. It was that easy. I mean, but it was but I was so panicked that I couldn't even like stop myself to think like, okay, Tracy, stop and look and think about where the buses could be. Instead, I just kept walking in circles. A little airport, I just kept walking in circles.

Mary 19:55

Well, and that's such a great analogy, I think, for life, because sometimes that fear is what we can't see past. And so instead of like kind of sitting for a second and being like, All right, is there another option? Is there another door? We let that fear block us. And then when we finally get some, you know, momentum, then it's like, oh, okay. And so once you found your bus, what was that trip like for you overall?

Loneliness, Movement, And Anonymity

Tracy 20:23

So the trip was fantastic, but um, you know, the funny one of the funniest things that happened on it is we get into downtown Rykovic and now I can't find the hotel. So I'm geographically challenged. I mean, I just I don't know. I don't I don't know the like the I have the maps, I'll have a map open even now. I'll have a map open. I'll be like, what direction am I supposed to go? And I still can't figure it out half the time. But so I get into downtown Rykovic. I can't find the hotel. I'm looking, I'm looking. I turn on my phone finally because like now at this point, I'm scheduled to go on a tour, so I gotta move. Like I've got somewhere to be. I turn on my phone, my phone starts pinging at me. You know, my daughter's like, Oh mom, did you make it okay? My brother's like, Oh, are you okay? Yeah, you know, where are you? Blah, blah, blah. Ping, ping, ping, ping. And then I see one that comes from T-Mobile. And T Mobile says, Congratulations, you're in Iceland. You have five gigabytes of free data. So, I mean, the craziest thing is is I worked myself up into this complete frenzy in the airport. And part of it was because I wasn't prepared, right? I didn't learn how to use my phone, or I guess I was just, I didn't think I needed to figure it out. When all if I had just either asked a few questions before leaving, or if I had just gone ahead and turned on my phone when I got there, all of that panic, all of that fear, I wouldn't have even felt any of it because it would have been like, oh, okay, like I got free data. You can turn on the phone. Okay, oh, maps, there you go. Okay, oh, well, there's the hotel, and you go on. And so it was one of the The first is one of the a really important thing that I learned because you know, taking that time to slow down, like you were saying just a few moments ago, taking that time to slow down and and regroup and give yourself a time to like you know inhale and just kind of be like slow exhale. Okay, you got this, you know, because we're all cap we're capable of doing it. It's just a matter of allowing yourself to think it. The rest of the trip ended up being wonderful. It was like a three-week trip. I, you know, I met my I ended up meeting friends in Ireland, which is how the whole trip started. It really wasn't only a one-way ticket in the sense that I had already purchased two other round trip tickets to get over to Europe because I was supposed to go to meet my friends in Ireland, and then I decided to add on time in uh Norway and Copenhagen and Denmark, and then I decided to add on Iceland, and so then that ended up becoming this one-way trip because this one-way ticket, because I was like, Well, I got a ticket to Iceland, I don't know where I'm going from there. I just know I'm going. So, yeah. So it it it was such a great trip in terms of helping me like just for a good, it was the best first experience I've ever had.

Not Reinvention: Learning To Say Yes

Mary 23:13

The best yeah, yeah. Well, I think it sort of segued the whole book, right? But you know, um, one of the things that also this makes me think of is I saw recently a post on social media about how travel is one of the most transformative things we can do because when you are a traveler and you said, you know, you have your carry on, you're like, I'm a traveler, you define yourself as that, but it also keep I don't want to say it keeps you, it changes your other identity. So for instance, you were still a mom, but mom was not your first role. And so it puts us in a situation where we have kind of a different identity, and you also, it sounds like, were traveling solo. So you had a lot of time inside your own head. So I know one of the one of the themes you talk about is loneliness. So that is something I think when people travel, think about traveling alone, which I do love solo travel. I love it because I love to absorb and do whatever I want. But I think there are people that are worried, what if I'm lonely? So you do have a lot of time to think and you're inside your head in this different country. So talk a little about did you feel lonely? Was that something you were worried about?

Tracy 24:32

It's not that I'm not worried about being lonely because I think we all have our times where we either feel lonely or can be or could feel lonely. Um, for me, I I thrive on movement. And so the more I move, the the less, you know, you have time to worry about being lonely, right? And so I think there's a part of it is like, you know, I'm just I stay on the go. I like to travel solo because I like to move. I like to decide, oh, I want to be here, I want to do this, even going through a museum. I'm one of those people I love to walk through museums and I want to stop when I stop and go when I go. I, you know, if something, if something is interesting to me, then I I stay at it and I can stay there. But I think one of the things I've learned by being by traveling as a solo person is that that movement and that anonymity that I mentioned earlier, right? Is that it it kind of frees me to like talk to people because at home, I would never, I wouldn't dare go up and talk to a stranger at a restaurant and just start a conversation with them. I just wouldn't. I still, and to this day, I still wouldn't do that. But when I travel, it's something about being again, being in this environment where nobody knows you. You create your own story, the story of who you are and um who you want to be. And and these aren't like it's not like I'm like all of a sudden being like, oh, like I'm a medical doctor, and the what if I'm not in my real life. That's not what I mean by you create your own story. It's like you create your own story, this personality that fits the person that you want to be, right? The person that you think is the best representation of yourself. And so then I go to restaurants and I go to bars and or I go to museums or I go on tours and I talk to people. And it's something I wouldn't do at home. And by being on the go constantly and moving, when I do stop, I feel like I'm kind of like, oh, I'm not lonely because I'm finally stopping to really notice what's happening around me. I don't have time to feel lonely. It's more I'm appreciating the time that I'm alone.

Mary 26:52

Yeah. Do you think about those trips, even starting back when you went to California, do you think about that as reinvention? Like, is that applicable?

unknown 27:02

Okay.

Choosing Family Or Flight, With Intention

Tracy 27:03

No, and you know, I've had this conversation with a couple of different people. I actually was having this a little bit of back and forth on Substack with somebody about this. And I don't think I've reinvented myself at all. Because the reality is, is I am still mom, I am still professional colleague, worker, I'm still sister, I'm still friend, I'm still all these, all of these other identities of who I am, they're still there. The difference is, is I feel like I have finally learned how to say yes to myself. And so instead of being like, oh, I've reinvented and I'm a new Tracy, I don't think of it like that. I just think of it like I finally gave Tracy, the person who I've always had been, permission to be there, permission to take up space, permission to say, I deserve this too, or I deserve to say yes to myself. And so this time I will. And maybe another time I won't. Maybe, maybe like, you know, I was supposed to go to Guatemala in December for New Year's, and I chose instead to spend time with my kids and go with them somewhere for New Year's. And so to me, that was still choosing me because it was choosing what I wanted to do. And so I don't think I've reinvented myself so much as I have learned how to say yes to myself. I don't think that's something I was able to do before I started traveling. I didn't, I didn't know how to. I was too busy trying to meet everybody else's expectations. That what I needed, what I wanted was it just it, it was it was low priority. It just it couldn't, it didn't have priority. And now mine has equal weight priority, if not more, than everybody else's.

Mary 28:49

Well, it sounds like you also have the ability to truly be present, to truly think about what is it I want right now the most. Like you made sort of the line in the sand about Christmas, like you knew after that this is a priority, but it's based on family, right? And in love and kids. And but it seems like this idea of okay, I have this trip planned, but you know what? I think it's gonna feel better and right and whatever to stay and spend time with my family. So it feels like you're really living in the present and trying to stay connected to what it is you want.

Modeling Boundaries For Kids

Tracy 29:24

Yeah, absolutely. Because another great example of that is in April, my son's um fraternity is having mom's weekend, right? And I'm scheduled to go to Vietnam. And so um, here's another situation where I'm like, I have these two competing things, you know, both of which I really want to do, just like Guatemala and spending New Year's with my kids. I wanted to do both of those things. But what I've done is I've said, okay, I want both of these, but what is it that like what is it that I feel like will give me the most balance that will make me feel the most alive and the most happy and whatever else it is. And I love spending time with my son at mom's weekend. We had a fabulous time last year. It was it was so much fun and I was so proud of him. But this year I've decided I'm going to go on my trip to Vietnam and I'm not going to switch my ticket. I am going to go just as I planned. And so I think it's really just trying to figure out what is that balance of saying, you know, no, I'm choosing myself this time. And and I'm choosing myself every time. And in when I chose my kids, I was still choosing myself, but it just happened to involve the choice that included them and giving yourself permission to make those kinds of choices. Because I know there's a lot of people out there, right? They would be completely like shocked to be like, oh my God, you're still gonna go on your trip to Vietnam and you're not gonna go to your son's mom's weekend with him. And you know, isn't he going to be sad? And aren't you sad that you're missing it? And yeah, like I mean, I I wish I could be there. But I also am giving myself permission to say that what I want to do is equally as important as what he wants. And I get to make the decision. It's not his decision to make anymore, it's my decision. And I think that's a really hard place for us, for women especially to live in because we're so conditioned to meet everybody else's expectations first, that it's really hard to say, no, I'm gonna put my me first. Yeah. And that's kind of what I'm trying to learn to do.

Mary 31:42

Well, and I I think we also underestimate the power of modeling for our kids how to balance that because it is not an easy balance. And when you can have that conversation with your son, like, you know, you I was with you last year, however, that conversation went, you know, like here's a and they obviously know you are a traveler now. So um, yeah, I think we underestimate that that is important too, to do that in a way that's balanced, but that makes it clear to your kids that you have priorities and a life that you want to live in a certain way, also.

Tracy 32:19

So my oldest son, you know, sometimes he'll say, I kind of get what you need to do, mom, but I'm not sure I totally get it. My daughter, and in contrast, she's really starting to get it. Not that she loves traveling, she doesn't love traveling, especially the places I go because, you know, I'm she wants the beach and fun, and you know, maybe she'll get to where I'd like to go later, but she's really starting to understand. And I don't know, I wonder how much like I wonder if her understanding is starting to come from a place of her being 21 years old and starting to see what those expectations are on women and on young people as like she starts hearing her friends talk about relationships, and if she hears one of her friends who gave something up to be in this relationship, or maybe one of them's not in a great one. I wonder how much of her understanding of what I want is influenced by her now seeing her friends in these relationships. And so she's starting to get it. Um, I and I think that that's really powerful, especially for you know, a young woman who I I want to go out and be in the world and live, you know, her best life as well. So I yeah, I I and her and I haven't really talked about that piece of it, but we have talked about her seeing some of her friends and being like, oh mom, I don't know, like such and such gave up this because of that, and because such and such said he didn't want her to go. And it makes so it makes me wonder if that's why she's starting to notice it.

Unexpected Joy: Vietnam Friendships

Mary 34:00

Which is pretty cool because again, but trying to really be in tune with what do you want versus what you're told you should want. It's an important distinction. So I talked about in in my intro, I talked about those little moments, which I think are so joyful that you think back on that really are, you know, they're the stories I think about when I think about traveling. And a lot of us, I think when we think of travel, it is, you know, buying the guidebook and what are the five top tourist attractions, which I do the opposite, because we were actually in Iceland um about a year and a half ago, and the beautiful waterfalls, but there was a line of 150 people, and that is not my jam. So, you know, can you think of what are some of the things that you think about, those little moments of unexpected joy that just are are so cool to think back on?

Tracy 34:54

Yeah, I have I have a really great one, actually. So Vietnam is my favorite place in the world to go to. If you've never been, I I cannot recommend it enough. You have to get to Vietnam. So my first trip to Vietnam, I kind of did the tourist thing. I had hired some guides and um and we explored the city and they took me throughout, like I went, you know, I went throughout, I did, you know, a week in north, south, and central. And um, but my guides, um Lom and Min, they both became kind of like people that I really connected with. And um, so Min on my first trip there, we actually, after the guide, after the tour was done later that night, we ended up going to a nightclub and we had such a great time. Well, we were just really connected, and it was such a lovely time. And you know, you always think, oh, you meet these people on these trips, and maybe they become somebody that you meet once or twice, and and that's it. Well, I loved Vietnam so much that before I left, I had booked another ticket back.

Speaker 2 35:53

Wow.

Belonging Across Borders

Tracy 35:54

I was like, I have to get back there, and I was going back the following September. I had actually had a trip already booked, a ticket booked out to go to Europe for Oktoberfest the following September of 2024. And um, I decided I was like, no, I have to, I have to get back to Southeast Asia. I just love it so much, I gotta get back. So um I rebooked my ticket to go back to Vietnam and spend some time there. But the piece about it that was incredible, I spent time in Sapa in the Makong Delta area, and I had so much fun. And I saw Lam again, and um he did, we did like a three-day tour, and it was wonderful. But the part that was incredible was I got scratched by a monkey in Bali, and so I had to kind of switch up my plans. I was supposed to, I was supposed to go to a spot in Malaysia and spend a few days in Penang, visiting Penang and the street art. And instead, I decided to go to back to Vietnam early so that I could get a rabieshot because I had to get another one. I had gotten to Mbali, I needed another one. So um I'm coming back to Dunang, which is where Lom and Min both live, that's in the central area. And um, I text both of them and I say, Hey guys, um, I'm coming back, I'm gonna be in Dunang for a few days. Are either one of you available to hang out? And both of them were available to hang out. And so Lom and I, we spent a day. We we got he we met up in the morning, we got coffee at, you know, one of the fabulous Vietnamese cafes where their coffee is just absolutely to die for. Um, we had lunch, and then he walked me over to a clinic where I could go get my rabies shot and helped me talk to, you know, the the staff there to make sure they knew everything that I needed. And then Min and I, we spent an entire day together. She introduced me to her friends, we rode my motorbikes through Vietnam. We got um, we went shopping, we went to a nightclub later that night. And what was incredible about it is after that trip, she invited me back to come stay with her family in the Central Highlands for the Lunar New Year. Wow. So it really was this great sense of, you know, they accepted me for who I was, and and this all came out of just this tour that I went on with her and that we spent the day with. The best part about Min is she's now invited me to her wedding. So I'm going back in April. So it's been this real growth of this relationship that all just stemmed from a tour of the city that we kind of spent time together. And I'm sure she has not invited every tourist that has ever gone on a tour with her back to her wedding. And so you it really just speaks to kind of the the community and the belonging that we felt, that we really felt together um when I was there in Vietnam. And so for me, that's probably the one thing that really sticks out. That one, that one moment that sticks out to me. And the pictures of us sitting there, you know, taking selfies together. And, you know, she's posting about me on Facebook and her family. Now I've met her family, and we have karaoke during the lunar new year, and you know, cooking food with her, and they're sending me um videos and pictures now saying, Welcome back, we can't wait to have you. All from this one tour, this one day. And then from the day where I actually called her up and said, All right, what's after? And said, Hey, do you want to get together today? I mean, it's just it's it's absolutely incredible.

Mary 39:32

Yeah, it is incredible. Well, first, I know if you ever play Two Truths and a Lie, you have to say, I got strapped scratched by a monkey and Bali and had to get rabi shots. So this really brings us back to that idea of belonging, that we can think, I'm I'm American, I belong in the United States, and you're finding belonging and connection all over the world. And I think that is really what I want people to take away from this conversation is that you it starts with one step and being uncomfortable and solving a problem, and then you solve the next problem, and you have that um courage or whatever we want to term it to just reach out and take a chance and talk to strangers and eat the food that you wouldn't eat at home and all of those things, it's just amazingly enriching. And we just have to push through that fear and discomfort, I think.

Try The Thing: Food, Risks, Growth

Tracy 40:27

Yeah, no, I I absolutely agree. And and I think again, I think that's why I try to choose the places that I choose because it almost forces me to do that. And then I feel even more alive by being in these spaces where, and it's not that I I want everyone to look at me to be like, oh, who's that blonde woman in this in a sea of like, you know, whether it's dark skin or dark hair or whatever. That's not what it is at all. But it's kind of like almost like I can disappear into that. And by disappearing into it, I allow myself to to become more open to whatever's going to happen. Because now I'm like, I'm in the midst of all this, and people aren't paying attention to me, right? They're there, nobody's paying attention to me. I'm just there and they're grateful that I've I have found that people are grateful that I'm there and I'm grateful that they're sharing with me. And um, yeah, it I I agree. You just have to put yourself out there and give it a chance. And even like trying, like, you know, I tried ostrich in South Africa and I tried llama in Peru. And, you know, I recently tried alligator. And I wrote a I wrote this article or I wrote an essay a couple months ago about cheese and sushi, where I hate cheese, and I was forced to eat it. So I've always been afraid to eat different food. And then I go to Japan and I'm like, well, I have to try sushi. I've never had it, but I'm gonna try it. And so, you know, this idea of just putting yourself out there to try something new and different, even if you're afraid, because you you definitely will leave enriched. And I have a lot of stories like that as I sit here and think about it. I'm like, oh my God, there's just story after story that just really shows that that's what is the enriching part of it. That's where the growth is coming from.

Mary 42:26

Yeah. Well, you know, the title of this podcast is No Shrinking Violets. So if there's there are women listening, and I'm guessing there are, who feel like they've lived small, what for whatever reason, fear or that was what was expected, or they were told they should do that, and they're thinking, I want to take a step out, either whether it's travel or something else, or belly dancing or crocheting or whatever it is, how would you advise them or what would you say to take that first step to just kind of live into the life that they really want to create?

First Steps For Women Who Shrink

Tracy 42:59

Yeah, I think I think Mary, you have to learn how to say yes to yourself first. And, you know, I I think that it's so important to do that. And this could even be something as simple as being like, I'm gonna go take a bath instead of washing dishes, or I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go read a chapter of this book that I've been dying to read instead of um making lunch right this minute, or some some other chore, like some chore. And I think that that's the very first thing that we can do for ourselves is we have to learn how to say yes to ourselves. We have to remember that we deserve to take up space wherever we are. We have to give ourselves permission to take up that space, and then we have to learn how to say yes to doing it. And so once you can do that at a small level, then learning how to crochet or learning the belly dancing, or maybe going on that first trip becomes a little bit easier because you now. Know that you are worth it. You deserve it. You're worth it. You've given yourself permission to do it. And so you can do it. And I don't think without those things that you can do that. I have a I have a colleague who um she was, we've been talking a lot over the past year or whatever about this book and um stuff. And she's been wanting to go back to China. And um I came back after the new year. So maybe sometime in January. And she said to me, She's like, Tracy, I booked my ticket. And she didn't she had been, it's not that she was afraid, I don't know if she was afraid, but like I think you know, there's some fear of the what if of doing that. And the and the what ifs are not just about booking the ticket, like the physical act of doing it, but what everybody's going to say. What are your kids going to do while you're gone? All these what ifs that you can you can conjure up hundreds of them. And so when she told me that she booked that ticket, I was so daggone proud of her because she basically told though she didn't give life to those what ifs. She put them away somewhere and she said, I'll deal with them later. I'm gonna put the ticket. And now she's going on this trip, something she's been wanting to do since since as long as I've worked her and have known her. She's talked about wanting to take this trip. So I she just, you know, she put those what-ifs away. And I think that that's what we have your listeners have to learn to do as well.

Mary 45:24

Yeah. Well, and I think the most, well, one of the most beautiful things about your story is we can hear, if we just heard, okay, this lady, Tracy, she went on this trip to Iceland and it was life-changing. They would envision you sailing through the airport, looking at your phone, calling a taxi, doing all these things. And it your trip was very imperfect. And I think we we wait till we feel ready. And then if we wait till we feel ready, we never do it. You did it, and you were about the farthest thing from ready as you could be. And it turned into this glorious kind of little bit of messy but really cool experience.

Tracy 46:05

Yeah, and that's the whole thing about this book, too, is you know, is that I try to tell people, um, even before they pick it up, to be like, my story is not like, you know, like the the book is not this story of, you know, I'm lost, I go on these trips, I'm found, and all of a sudden, hurrah, I'm cured, and now I'm the perfect Tracy. That is not my story at all. My story is I went on this trip and I was so unprepared. And every trip afterwards, I'm unprepared in some other way. I mean, every single one of them, like in Belize, I got bitten up by um these little, I don't know, whatever kind of bugs they were, little flies. And I had, I mean, I have scars on my legs from the from the the bites, from the bug bites. And I I wasn't prepared at all because I had no bug spray. I had no in I had no insect repellent, I had no antihistamines, I had no nothing. So as much as you think you're prepared for these trips, you're you're not. And so you're right, you'll never be prepared. And so instead, you just kind of go, you know, you go and do it. And so this book is this store are these stories of not being prepared and living with the messiness of that and and revisiting it every single time because I am, I'm constantly revisiting who I am and what happened and how have I changed. And maybe today I realize I changed this way. I could think about that same story next week, and I'd be like, oh yeah, that happened too, and I probably changed that way too. So it's messy and it's complicated, and that's life. And anyone who thinks otherwise isn't really living life. Yeah, very true.

Mary 47:47

Well, I love talking to you. Tell us again the name of your book and where people can find out more about you.

Imperfect Trips, Real Transformation

Tracy 47:53

Sure. So the name of the book is The Purpose of Getting Lost. And um, you know, it's readily available with some quick Google searches. It is on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Um, if you prefer to go with some of the small booksellers, several of them are hosting it. Um, you can buy the print versions on their website as well. So um I've it that's been really kind of fun to see that on some of the small independent bookstores. Um, I do share everything on my website, which is Tracy Smith Author. So all of the details of my trips I share, and they're not travel logs, like some are, oh, I did this or I went here, but they're more really reflective and thinking about what did I learn and how did I get there. And, you know, some will talk about the monkey scratch, I'm sure. And there's one on there that talks about it. And so that's all on my website. And you could also search for Tracy Travels Everywhere, Tracy Travels, they all will get you to the same, the same place. Those are all, it's me. The other place you can go if you wanted to get a taste more of my reading is to Substack, and that's Tracy Smith PhD. And there I really kind of share a lot of essays where I'm still learning about identity and permission and belonging and thinking through all of these really complicated parts of what make us human and and just thinking about them among myself and among my daily life. And so yeah, that would be the other place too.

Mary 49:26

Awesome. Well, before we officially end, where is one place on your list that you haven't gone yet that you can't wait to go to?

Tracy 49:33

There's a lot of places. Oh, well, I really want to go to Jordan and I um, but I think that's you know, I to see to go to Petra and see these beautiful, this beautiful site. But the one place that I think is really cool that is on my list that I'm planning a trip to that I have planned is to Uganda. And that is to go gorilla trekking. So I'm gonna go hike, hike. I have no idea because I never go prepared. So I really don't know what I'm in for. I just know that I'm gonna go look for gorillas and chimpanzees in Uganda.

Mary 50:05

Totally cool. Well, I can't, I cannot wait. I'm gonna look you up on Substack. I can't wait to hear about your next adventure. And thank you so much for being here today.

Tracy 50:14

Yeah, it was really my pleasure. I really enjoyed talking with you. Thank you for having me.

Book, Website, And Substack

Mary 50:18

And I want to thank everyone for listening. And speaking of adventures, when this airs, I will have been living in my new city for about three weeks. I have so many new coffee shops to try. If you would like to help fund my caffeinated exploration and buy me a coffee, click the support the show link in the show notes and I will report back on what I find. And until next time, go out into the world and be the amazing, resilient, vibrant violet that you are.