Reflections

If there was an Olympic event for balancing wires at impossible angles, I’d have more gold medals than Michael Phelps. My specialty? Competitive charger wrestling. But medals don’t matter when your phone is dying at 3% and the charger has decided it’s not in the mood. Some things don’t break all at once. They fail slowly, until you realize you’re living by their rules. So, is my charger in charge? Definitely. I accepted that the day I realized I was losing thumb fights to a cable.

We are in a toxic relationship, my charger and I. It gives me just enough hope to stay, and just enough pain to make me question every life choice. Honestly, I can’t even blame it. I’ve pushed it past its limits. Maybe it’s waiting for the day I finally let it go. But that day isn’t here yet.

I like to think I’m not controlled by anything. But when it comes to the Ctrl key on my laptop, I surrender. This tiny button controls a surprising amount of my daily life.

Take work, for instance. The effort I put in? Cut down significantly thanks to this little savior. Copy, paste, undo, select all. It’s a champion. No doubt about it.

It is a fool’s dream, but superheroes really do exist. Not all heroes wear capes, true. Some wear polished dents. My little friend wears it proudly.

It never gets tired. Maybe it does, but it never complains. I’ve never heard it ask for recognition. Just sits there, ready, every single time I reach for it, which I do hundreds of times a day. I hope it’s not true, but there are times I feel like I am a cruel master.

I don’t usually listen to them. Chairs, I mean. But some of them do talk. There is this one in my office. Missing its armrests, buried in dust and grieving in silence. It had watched me for weeks. And finally, I watched back.

Strange, the things furniture can say when we’re still enough to hear. Good thing I gave it that moment.

Join me in a playful reflection on how we treat the things around us, and what they might think of us in return.