I don’t know why I’m writing this, honestly. It’s like, 2:17 AM. I can’t sleep. And it’s been bothering me for… well, forever, I guess. But especially now. You know, with them selling the farm. My parents, I mean. And it’s not just the land, not really. It’s everything that goes with it. The whole… story. I went over there last Tuesday, around three o’clock. They wanted me to help them sort through some of the old records. Tax stuff from decades ago, you know, for the new people. And I’m going through these ledgers, these big, heavy books with my grandfather’s handwriting, really neat, and then my dad’s, a bit spikier as the years went on, and I just kept thinking, this is IT. This is the end of it. The very last page. And it’s just… gone. My mom, she came in with some coffee, and she just said, “You know, it’s for the best, honey. We’re not getting any younger.” And I know that. Logically, I *know* that. It’s not like they can still haul feed bags or fix a broken tractor engine at eighty. But it felt so… dismissive. Like it was just a practical decision. No emotion to it. And maybe for them, that’s how they deal with it, but for me? It’s gut-wrenching. I remember when I was a kid, maybe ten, eleven. My dad was showing me how to check the fence line, and he was talking about how one day, this would all be mine. My responsibility. And I just remember this dread, this cold knot in my stomach. Because I already knew, even then. I knew I wasn’t… built for it. Not like them. I liked books. I liked quiet. I liked sitting in the shade, not out in the sun, covered in dust and sweat. I remember a particularly nasty performance review in my first corporate job that stung less than the shame I felt at not wanting to take over the farm. How messed up is that? And they never pushed. Not really. Not overtly. They just… expected it. It was the unspoken understanding. Like, of course, the next generation steps up. That’s just what happens. And I went to college, got my degree, moved to the city, got my nice office job, climbed the ladder, did all the things. And they were proud, you know? They’d tell people, "My daughter, she’s doing so well in the city, very important job." But I always knew what wasn't being said. The silent question. *But what about the farm?* It’s this weird guilt, this constant hum under everything. Like I failed at the one thing I was put on this earth to do, even though I never wanted to do it. It’s like I broke some ancient chain, you know? And now, watching them box up the tools, listening to my dad talk about the buyers, "good people, going to do good things with the land," it feels like a physical ache. Like something has been ripped out. And it’s all on me. All of it. Because if I’d had a sibling, maybe it would be different. Someone else to take up the mantle. Someone else to want it, to love it, to carry it forward. But it was just me. The only one. The singular hope. And I blew it. I chose a corner office over the open fields. And now there’s no next generation. No one to keep the story going. Just… an end. And I feel like I’m sitting here, holding the last page, and it’s blank. And I just don’t know what to do with that. Or how to stop feeling like this.