Naples, Italy

I sold the family business and immediately missed the life I complained about

Dear Delyara, I ran my parents’ grocery shop for twenty-nine years. I complained constantly: six-day weeks, suppliers, refrigeration bills, customers who wanted credit, holidays interrupted because something broke. Last month, I sold it. The buyer is turning it into a pharmacy. For years I dreamed about freedom. Now I wake at five without anywhere to go. My wife says I can finally travel. I keep walking past the old shop instead. Yesterday, workers removed the sign with my family name. I stood across the street pretending to check my phone. I had wanted that shop gone from my responsibilities. I did not understand I had also built my identity around being the man people asked for when they needed tomatoes, change, local gossip, or a key left with somebody reliable. Retirement was supposed to give me my life back. I am embarrassed to admit that I no longer know which parts of the life were mine and which were the shop’s.