Growing roots for a new home [Image credit: Google Gemini]

The college freshman sat on the stiff dorm bed, the unfamiliar silence a heavy blanket. A single notification glowed on his phone—a picture from home. His family, gathered around the dinner table for his little sister’s birthday, laughed over a cake he hadn’t tasted. His father’s arm was draped around an empty chair. His own. A hollow ache expanded in his chest, a homesickness so profound it felt like a physical void. He missed the chaotic warmth of the kitchen, the familiar comfort of his old bed, the effortless belonging. Here, he was alone, responsible for every meal, every chore, every quiet moment that stretched on without a familiar voice to fill it.

Overwhelmed, he wandered to the campus garden, a place he’d been told offered solace. And there, beneath a grand, ancient oak, he found Little Sage. The boy was not doing anything grand, simply tracing the veins of a fallen leaf with a quiet finger, a single robin perched peacefully on his knee.

The freshman’s sigh was a ragged thing. “I just… I didn’t know it would feel this empty,” he confessed, the words tumbling out. “I miss the noise. I miss my mom’s cooking. I miss knowing where everything is. Now I’m just… lost.”

Little Sage looked up, his gaze holding the deep, steady patience of the earth. He did not offer solutions, but a simple observation. “The tallest trees often grow in the deepest solitude,” he said, his voice a soft murmur. “They are not lonely. They are building roots strong enough to touch the sky.” He gently lifted the robin from his knee, and it fluttered to a low branch. “You are not in an empty space. You are in a growing space.”

He pointed to a single, struggling sapling fighting for light at the base of the great oak. “That young tree misses the forest it came from, too. Its roots are new here. But see how it turns its leaves, not to look back at the shadows of the older trees, but to reach for the sun that is offered right here, right now?”

The freshman looked from the sapling to his own hands. Little Sage continued, “You are not missing out. You are branching out. Every meal you make for yourself is a new root. Every friend you have yet to meet is a new leaf waiting to unfurl. This solitude is not a punishment; it is the soil.”

A quiet understanding began to settle over the freshman. The hollow ache didn’t vanish, but it was suddenly filled with potential, like rich soil waiting for a seed. He wasn’t losing a home; he was building a new one, within himself.

“Peace begins with a smile,” Little Sage whispered, and for the first time all day, the freshman truly did.

When did you last find strength in a moment of solitude?

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