Closure on a county

I have 2 weeks left in Dekalb County, MO.  FYI, the L is silent.  One of the things about moving on is you have to leave somewhere.  I have always liked Dekalb County.  I have lived here for a little over 7 years and been visiting for 15.  When we first moved here I really enjoyed the way that the community worked.  I enjoyed the fact that dozens vacationed together to the same spot every year, and we were included.  I enjoyed going to neighbor's house to butcher beef and hogs with family and friends.  We celebrated holidays with friends as much as family.  I felt like I had moved back into the county that my mother grew up in.  I felt it gave me the roots I had always wanted.  A place where the land had a history and my boys and I were going to write our story on that same land.  I will never have a piece of my families history and I wanted my boys to have a piece of their own.  Luckily, their stories have not been written yet.  They will still have the opportunity to insert themselves into the history of the land if they so chose.  That will not be the case for me.  The farm that I bought has been sold to a huge corporation that apparently has no intention of using the land.  And my dream of making my living off of the sweat of my brow alone is gone.  Alas, that is the nature of dreams.  They are vivid, lifelike and undecipherable mysteries.  They lead us places that we could not have imagined ourselves going.  But the dead, withered dream becomes the fertilizer for the next.  I have embarked on many different paths over my 37 years.  Each one led by a new dream.  Some of those dreams never made it past a seedling and others grew, matured and died at an appropriate time.  But each was a worthwhile venture.   This one was no different.  Each path we chose writes it's history on us as much as we write on it.  I will be moving out of Dekalb County a very different man than I was when I got here.  I am appreciative of that.