The restaurant lease is waiting for my signature
Dear Delyara, I have wanted to open my own restaurant since I was fourteen. My parents have offered their retirement savings for the deposit, my wife has agreed to reduce her hours and help with accounts, and a landlord has sent the final lease. Everyone thinks I am about to achieve the dream I have spoken about for twenty years. The document has been open on my laptop for six days. I cannot sign it. I keep imagining empty tables, bad reviews, spoiled food, staff wages I cannot pay, my father pretending not to regret giving me the money he earned driving buses in winter. At work, I am the head chef everyone trusts during a crisis. At home, I cannot click a button. My wife says fear is normal. She does not understand that failure would not only close a restaurant. It would turn every sacrifice my family made into evidence that they believed in the wrong person. The lease expires tomorrow. I have told everyone the lawyer is still reviewing it. There is no lawyer. There is only me, one cursor, and a dream that felt safer before it became a legal address.