Growing up in a family of plant killers, we struggled to turn our pro-Earth intentions into better results. Fed up, we made a plan to revise our poor habits and revitalize our dying plants: start a food compost.

So, we bought an outdoor compost ball. To stimulate decomposition, my family would roll it around our yard. We got odd looks and the occasional snicker from neighbors and passersby, but if it was to help our plants and our planet, then that's all that mattered.

The rolling momentum of the compost ball set our sense of motivation into motion. It took some time and patience, but the food turned into the fertile soil our withered plants needed. Along with plenty of water and T.L.C., they soon began to exhibit bits of green.

It's nine years later, and I'm now in college as an Environmental Science Major. Because I've been away for the past year, I haven't been able to roll around that compost ball. Now that I'm finally back home for the summer, it has become an almost foreign concept, as I saw it as a childish act to roll around food scraps, bugs and dirt.

However, the longer I'm here, the more I've come to realize the reason why I've been finding myself becoming restless.

While I've been gone, the town that I've lived in for the past decade seemed to have lost its endearing charm. Every day that I've been home, I've had to remind myself that it's after all a heavily family-oriented area, and that growing up means, well, outgrowing your childhood. I wasn't ready to feel so detached about my hometown as much as I now feel unwilling to integrate into the rest of the "real world".

But through this rather depressing epiphany, I've also come to realize that the term "growing up" is still valid when put in quotations. My status as an adult doesn't restrict me to just within the confines of adulthood. I still have time to indulge in my childhood instincts. And hopefully I'll always have that time.

I've taken to rolling that compost ball around once more. It's nostalgic, and it keeps me in check about maintaining my environmentally consciousness.

So if you see me traversing the yard with a large sphere this summer, feel free to join in on the fun. I promise you won't regret feeling like a kid again while saving the world, one organic garden at a time.