I Get Emotional Over Stupid Things

They're closing the Safeway a few blocks from my place... I've been living here for over 20 years, I moved just before my now-adult daughter was born... The last twenty years have been quite eventful, lets just say things have gone from bad to worse, including a divorce and being unemployed twice (with all the unpleasant financial consequences...) In all these years, that Safeway has been always there for me, no matter what. If I was hungry, if I needed anything, from food to prescription medicines, that's where I went... It is/was the smallest grocery store in the neighborhood and I guess it just could not compete with the new, bigger grocery stores (it had been there since the 1970s I think)... Going there these last few months have been a bit painful, as they get rid of inventory. Every time I go there there's more and more empty shelves, and now I never know if they'll have whatever I need to buy (I've made a mental not of the stuff they no longer have...) They close definitely in two weeks, today they had a sign on the door saying they'll be closing at 9 PM from now on (they used to close at 11 PM, the latest in the neighborhood, which was great the many times I needed to buy something late at night...) I felt so bad today, all those empty shelves, more than half of the shelves were empty (yet there seemed to be as many customers as always) There are some people there that I've known for years (they all seemed rather happy, though, I guess they'll get a nice severance package...) Up to this morning, the shelves were like 30% - 40% empty, but today it was like 70% empty... It felt like slow death, and for a moment I couldn't help thinking that it was like a metaphor for my own life, all this years... First the excitement and hope of a new, happy life, then the acceptance that things won't get any better, and at last this slow death... I'm not getting any younger and I sometimes feel I'm not as sharp and bright as I used to be. Maybe it's just the stress and anxiety, or maybe I'm just getting old... I couldn't help thinking that those empty shelves were a metaphor for my life, for me getting older, chunks of my being taken away never to return, and a certain death eventually. I almost burst into tears (but I didn't). All the work, all the effort, for nothing... People doing their best to run the place, yet they were losing money all along, until they had to close the place down... Feels like my life, all these 20 years doing my best, but really don't achieving anything and eventually ending up just death, possibly not in two weeks or any time soon, but the same outcome, just vanishing and the only thing left would be someone's memories and a few old photos...