Recently, I went home to enjoy some time with family, and I found myself spending a lot of time going for walks with different family members.
This was just before the leaves had started to change, and my dad and I were ambling through our neighborhood together.
We were walking past the house of one of our neighbors when I noticed our neighbor had planted a new tree. It hadn’t been there last time I was home, but there it was, looking spindly and bare amidst all the other green shrubbery flourishing around it. It was sad, I remarked, because it looked like our neighbor had put in a lot of effort to have something transplanted to the yard, only for it to get sick.
Then my dad started explaining some stuff about trees. Apparently, it’s really common for them to experience a transplant as an act of trauma. The first thing they do is reprioritize what needs the most attention and drop all their leaves so they can focus on their roots.
We walked a little further, and my dad pointed out other trees in the neighborhood that had been recent transplants – all of them were full and flourishing.
As you’ve probably guessed, it wasn’t hard to catch the significance of what he was saying. When you’re going through something stressful, new or challenging, sometimes you’ve got to reprioritize which parts of your life get the most help and attention.
Occasionally, you can make it through by doubling down, taking care of yourself and acclimating without anyone being able to tell you’ve gone through a rough patch. But sometimes, you have to shed some leaves. Maybe even all of them. And that’s okay and natural.
Maybe you’re having one of those rough patches right now. Maybe you’re unsure of how to take the time to rest, heal and grow without dropping a few extracurriculars or cutting back on your classes.
But, once you’ve taken that added stress off your shoulders, you can start to acclimate to your surroundings again, and ultimately, that will be the thing that gets you back to feeling like yourself.
Therefore, as the leaves finally start coming down, this November, take a second to reassess yourself and maybe figure out if you need to drop a few leaves to focus on your roots. After all, they will always grow back.