It all started in Summer 2014, when I made a salad and became a statistical anomaly.

So I chopped up a tomato and found sprouts inside. You know grocery store vegetables and fruits? Most of those aren't supposed to reproduce; apparently these little guys didn't get the memo. Naturally, I planted them....and ended up with over six dozen healthy, full-grown tomato plants.

Fast forward to today: twenty dorm plants, that tomato's great-grandchildren, and bankruptcy by potting soil.

Laugh all you want--I fully own the fact that I'm a botany nerd, and I'll laugh right back at you, surrounded by all the delicious home-grown produce I don't have to buy.

Playing twenty-plant jenga in the car while moving to and from campus? Not a plus. But they're worth it. I've actually learned a lot from my little green pals.

First, patience. I've had to slow down.

I've actually noticed my mental timeframe shift since I started gardening. I've learned how to pause: how to take a second and breathe. Plants grow at their own pace, and it's a heck of a lot slower than mine. Their growth is a process, one you can't force. It puts you in tune with time.

It also happens imperceptibly. That's a relaxing perspective: we're changing at all times, maybe in increments so small we can't see them. But growth is constant, however slow. There's always a chance to change. I feel like the same person--but I look back at my teenage self and who is that idiot? Who you are now is not who you'll be in ten years. You're never locked into one self.

Second, wonder. There's something magical about coaxing plants out of seeds. You realize how fragile and bizarre the whole process is: for all intents and purposes seeds are little rocks, hard and grey and unassuming. But give them a little love, and suddenly there's this living, killable, green thing unfurling in your hand.

I've had my lemon trees for a year now. I've watched them bust through their seed-coats, growing inch by inch through each season. I've watched each leaf open and spread; kept them the right temperature, kept them in the perfect amount of sun, nudged them through a couple illnesses. They've grown from seeds to foot-tall saplings. Hopefully I'll have them for years to come, when they're actual, real trees, with me through new places and jobs and people. There's a bond there.

They may be really boring, silent pets, but I have a lot to thank them for. They're there on the windowsill, and that's enough to make me smile every morning.