The valley is overgrown. A hillside where I remember horses grazing is covered with saplings taller than I am. Vines are choking out barns and outbuildings. Nature is threatening to retake what my ancestors have claimed for generations: farmland, lawns, tiny parking lots around tinier businesses. It feels suffocating. If I stayed, would the forest consume me? Would the rough ridges run haphazardly over my life? I remember being twelve, wondering if I would find the space to stand up straight and not feel smothered.
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