I have been thinking about the odd little afterlife of being useful.
For years, someone rings. Someone asks. Something comes loose and you are the person who tightens it. You may complain about being needed, naturally, because that is one of the luxuries of being needed. But the complaint has a floor under it. It proves you are still in the structure somewhere.
Then one day the structure carries on without making any dramatic announcement.
A number drops off a phone chain. A decision is made in a room you no longer enter. Someone else knows the answer now. Nobody is cruel. Nobody is plotting. That is almost the problem. If people left you out on purpose, you could have a grievance, and a grievance is a surprisingly comfortable object at my age. You can take it out and polish it.
The harder thing is being left out by ordinary drift.
Today’s piece began in a shed, with a socket set I could not quite bring myself to give away. A socket set is not a decorative item. You keep it because one day something will come loose and you will still be the person who knows what to do.
I stood there longer than was sensible, trying to decide whether keeping it was hope or denial.
I kept it.
I am not sure that is a victory. I am not sure it is not.
The full piece began on The Old Grey Thinker:
https://theoldgreythinker.substack.com/p/ive-stopped-being-the-bolt-that-rattles
This piece began on The Old Grey Thinker.
If it made you laugh, nod, mutter “unfortunately yes,” or stare into the middle distance for a worrying length of time, you can support the work here: