You know that thing where you've been working toward something your whole damn life, like since you were a little kid drawing pictures of your imaginary shop, and then you actually DO it? And everyone's like "OMG that's so brave, so amazing!" and you're just nodding, smiling, but inside it's like a siren going off, like a fire alarm that won't shut the fuck up. Yeah, that. That's where I am right now. We just opened, like, two weeks ago. My bakery. *My* bakery. It’s got the big window, the cute little counter, the smell of fresh bread even when it’s empty. We poured everything into it, you know? Every last penny of my folks' savings, money they were supposed to retire on, money I earned busting my ass in that corporate job for ten years just so I could get enough capital to even *start* this. I told them, "It's gonna be huge, Maman, Papa! We're gonna kill it!" And they believed me. They still do, I think. But then you’re standing there, 7 AM, a full tray of perfect croissants cooling, and the street is just… empty. Nada. Zip. Like a ghost town. And you think, *merde*. And it’s not even just the money, though sweet Jesus, that’s a huge part of it. It’s like, your entire identity, your whole sense of who you are, it’s wrapped up in this thing. You spend years in cubicles, getting those performance reviews, climbing that ladder, just so you can finally jump off and build your own damn ladder, right? So you quit, you put your whole soul into this, you wake up at 3 AM every day to bake, and then you’re just… waiting. Waiting for people to walk through that door. Waiting for that validation that you didn’t just make the biggest, most expensive mistake of your entire existence. I keep looking out the window, like a fucking sentinel. Every car that slows down, every person who even glances at the sign, my heart does this stupid little leap. And then they just walk past. Or they look, and then they keep walking. And you start to hear all the doubts, all the little whispers from the people who told you it was a "risky venture," that you "had a good thing going" at your old job. And you just want to scream, "I KNOW! I FUCKING KNOW IT'S RISKY!" But you can't, because you have to be the strong one, the visionary, the one who knows what they're doing. Sometimes I just stand there, behind the counter, my hands still sticky with dough, and I imagine the "closed" sign going up permanently. Six months, tops, if we keep going like this. Six months until my parents lose their retirement, until I'm totally bankrupt, until this lifelong dream just collapses into a pile of dusty flour and stale bread. And then what? Go back to a desk job? Start from scratch again? The thought… it just makes my stomach clench into a knot you couldn't untie with a crane. What if this was my ONE shot? What if I just blew it?