Who In The World is… Tricia De Souza?
Hey! My name is Tricia or Patricia or Patty (based upon the alcohol contents in my body). I am twenty-something, and I really enjoy cooking and drawing and hiking. I am an Aquarius for any astrology appreciators. And for those who couldn’t care less, I also enjoy podcasts. And according to the Myers-Briggs Test, I am no longer an INFP but miraculously an ENFP. My shy and silent five-year-old self is quaking.
I would also say that I love storytelling, and that’s truly at the heart of this blog endeavor. Although ‘Where In The World’ mainly features stories from my most recent travels in Spain, my passion for storytelling extends to a time much further back than 2021/2022. This interest truly gained ground at the Quaker boarding school I attended from 9th to 12th grade. High school was a complicated sometimes quite painful time for many people and with good reason. Even so, when I look back at my experience, I can’t help but focus on the countless adventures my friends and I embarked on– whether allowed to or not. On quiet seemingly boring weekends, my friends and I would get into a host of random activities: from dressing up, putting on colorful makeup and taking fun photoshoots to making random smoothie concoctions (sorry for the person who ate a pizza smoothie). But above all else, one of our most treasured pastimes was what I called ‘adventuring’ usually initiated by the question: “Do you want to go adventuring?”
‘Adventuring’ could be anything really but mostly it meant walking aimlessly through the random patches of forest in suburban Pennsylvania. As a Philly native, this proximity to the natural world was an invitation I couldn’t refuse. It is on these adventures that nature transformed into a refuge, and thus into an incredibly fundamental aspect of my adolescent journey. On some of these ‘adventures,’ my film-loving bestie would bring her camera to capture these precious ‘coming-of-age’ moments. Look, The Perks of Being A Wallflower was required reading. And so, my best friend began documenting all of our shenanigans. One time, we even set up a tripod in the middle of a marshy area hidden behind the tennis courts ( I know crazy to say) and took videos of ourselves dancing with flower crowns. We were ready for our America’s Next Top Model moment… but it was eventually cut short because those damn mosquitoes were a little too friendly.
But more than half-a-decade since those events, I feel like I’m still trying to find my ‘coming-of-age’ moment. Although I have technically grown out of this targeted audience, I still feel like there is so much growing I want and need to do, and like we did when were younger, I want to document what life has been like in my twenties, especially as I am embarking on a new journey of living abroad. I am excited to see where this new story, this new chapter takes me. My younger me probably could have never imagined who she was to become and what she was going to do in the ensuing years. But that’s kind of the most beautiful thing about the reflecting process that is so integral to blogging. It allows you to think about all the different experiences that have informed who you are today. Maybe 15-year-old me would be proud of herself for what we are doing right now, or maybe she’d think that she had become kind of corny in the future.
Either way, there is one habit of mine that has certainly stayed the same: “Wanna go ‘adventuring’?”
Where in the world 