As a child, I spent countless hours exploring the woods around my home—barefoot more often than not, following deer paths that wound between the Georgia pines like secrets waiting to be discovered. I feasted on sun-warmed blackberries that stained my fingers purple, muscadines that burst sweet on my tongue, and wild plums hidden in thickets only I seemed to know about.

Raised by a single working mother whose primary focus was keeping food on the table and a roof over our heads, my little brother and I were allowed to roam freely, largely unsupervised. What might have looked like neglect from the outside became my greatest gift: a childhood spent in conversation with trees, a friendship forged with creeks that sang over smooth stones, an intimacy with the land that asked nothing of me but my presence.

I didn’t know it then, but those woods were raising me too. They gave me what I craved most—a sense of belonging so deep it lived in my bones. Among the pines and creek beds, I was never lonely. I was *home*.

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As I grew into a young adult, the reality of human life settled into my bones the same way cold gets inside you on a winter day—slowly, then all at once. The world told me to turn my attention elsewhere, to find warmth in more “practical” places. Like so many of us, I began looking for my worth in relationships, in achievements, in all the ways we’re taught to prove we matter.

And slowly, quietly, my connection to the trees and creek beds grew faint, like a radio station drifting out of range. The loneliness I’d never known as a child crept in. For years, I would try to return to the natural world, hoping to feel that old magic again. But it was like trying to remember a dream—I knew it had been real, but I couldn’t quite touch it anymore.