Found at Fifty: My Journey Through the World and Back to Myself 

Found at Fifty: My Journey Through the World and Back to Myself 

Found at Fifty: My Journey Through the World and Back to Myself is a memoir of reinvention. It is a story of a two-year, 200,000-mile journey that took me across five continents. I meditated at the feet of Buddha in the temples of Southeast Asia. I stood in the sky of the ancient ruins of Machu Picchu. I climbed on the shoulders of soccer fans in the bustling souk of Qatar. And I sat peacefully in quiet European villages and chaotic train stations. And through it all, I leaned into my discomfort and confronted the unknown path of my story.

But Found at Fifty is more than a story of solo experiences. It is a story of charting a new course for life, regardless of age or expectations. It is about the power of stepping outside the comfort zone, shedding old identities, and cultivating a new and profound peace within. 

Found at Fifty is an invitation for any woman who feels stuck to begin again, to dream wildly, to stop asking for permission, and to discover that the most extraordinary journeys start exactly where and when everything else seems to end. 

EXCERPT

Today I woke up. And like every day for the last three decades, there were bills to pay, kids to take to school, activities to complete, a house to clean, and cars to maintain. For years, I had met the needs of everyone–my children, my partner, my colleagues, my friends, and most importantly my family. Then, out of nowhere, my children grew up. They became independent and started living their own lives. And without warning, suddenly our house was empty… empty of their laughter and phone conversations, empty of finished snack bags and water bottles on the counter, empty of dirty clothes in the laundry and towels on the floor. Not only did they leave our home empty, but without them, I was empty too.

Outwardly, I had achieved what many might consider success: a good career, a solid financial background, and a family that for decades had defined my days. Despite all my so-called “wins,” I still felt unsettled. A fundamental part of me remained unfulfilled, uncharted. I had expected that my achievements would quiet the persistent and growing restlessness that began to vibrate beneath the surface, but a sense of fulfillment never arrived. Rather, it grew louder as the house became emptier, like wind slipping through a crack in the window—steady, searching, and cold. The quiet was disconcerting, and peace came only when I listened to the whispers that pressed gently against the edges of my consciousness. As those whispers became louder and rose to the surface, something began stirring inside me… a rekindling of a long-lost dream… a dream of markets to visit, languages to hear, and ancient temples to see… a dream of a life that was meant to be lived. 

And so, three years ago, I boarded my first transatlantic flight to Reykjavik. I had never traveled internationally by myself. I didn’t know where to go or how to get there, but I knew I had to try. 

Landing in Reykjavik, the city greeted me with its cozy chaos: clean streets, low buildings, and a sharpness in the air that felt like mental clarity to my cluttered mind. I was gripped by the cold rush of panic going through passport control, standing alone with a suitcase and no clear plan. I was jet-lagged and half-frozen, trying to calculate the exchange rate between kroners and dollars. The shuttle from the airport to the hotel was my first real challenge, and it was also my first win. I didn’t cry. I didn’t panic. I figured it out. And that small victory felt enormous.  

After dropping my bag off at the hotel, I set off for the Golden Circle tour that I had signed up for. We visited Þingvellir National Park, the very spot where the tectonic plates of North America and Europe literally drifted apart. Standing on that edge, watching the earth split, I felt something similar happening inside me. A quiet fissure forming between who I had been and who I might become. The geysers hissed and erupted. The waterfalls thundered. When my phone died before I could take pictures of the crater, I surprised myself by not caring. Maybe it didn’t need to be documented. Maybe it just needed to be felt—fully, quietly, without analysis. Maybe it was a whisper from something greater, meant to be carried inward like an unspoken prayer. That night, sipping beer at a local pub, I wrote in my journal: I don’t know exactly what I’m doing, but I know it matters that I’m here. I had walked 15,000 steps that day, and every one of them was mine alone. 

After returning home from that first trip, the voice became more persistent, and I realized that voice came to me in many forms. It was the whisper of wide-open roads, of rice fields in Vietnam, of ancient civilizations in Peru, and of church steeples in Europe. It was the thrill of arriving in a new city, the challenge of fumbling for local currency, the lesson in gratitude that comes with learning to say “thank you” in yet another language. That voice was the memory of how my heart raced when I stood on the shores of Iceland and realized I was no longer afraid to be alone. And I desperately wanted more of that. Something had shifted in me after that trip to Iceland. I was reminded that what I wanted was important. Maybe I couldn’t quit my job tomorrow, but I could begin to rewrite my story. 

This is that story. It is a story of living in a house that was now quiet. A story of a job that paid for college tuition, mortgage payments, health insurance, and the persistent bathroom leak that I hadn’t fixed. This is a story of Monday morning meetings that reminded me that I wasn’t chasing my dreams but rather chasing deadlines. This is a story of dreams on a spreadsheet, titled “Someday”, a spreadsheet where flights to Portugal, Cambodia, and Patagonia were color-coded by continents and seasons. This is a story of a dream that had faded under the weight of life’s demands, until it didn’t. This is a story of how I decided that the spreadsheet called “Someday” would become “Now.” This is a story of a call, a lingering dream, a whisper of a different future, a life reclaimed. This is the story of a seismic shift that began with a single, trembling step onto foreign soil. 

Ultimately, this is a story of how my ticket to Reykjavik wasn’t just for a flight—it was a lifeline, pulling me toward something I didn’t yet have words for.

—

Tracy Sikorski is a writer, higher education finance professional, mother, and passionate traveler who took her first solo international trip at age 49 and never looked back. In the span of two and a half years, she has traveled over 200,000 miles across five continents, chronicling her deeply personal journey of rediscovering lost dreams, embracing the unknown, and building a new life chapter on her own terms.

She shares her travel posts on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/tracytravelseverywhere/) in a candid, heartfelt voice that explores what it means to be a woman at midlife – independent, curious, a little scared, and completely alive. 

She holds a PhD in Educational Psychology and when she isn’t booking her next adventure or sharing stories with fellow travelers, she’s hanging with her three adult children, building excel templates and dreaming up future writing projects.

Find her on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tracytravelseverywhere

 

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Category: Contemporary Women Writers