Do you remember when was the last time you looked for your sharpener? Or do you even have one?
People tend to look for things only when they need them. You won’t see someone holding a sharpener all the time. You only notice it when a pencil has grown dull — when something needs fixing.
And sometimes, I feel like I’m a sharpener.
They don’t look at me unless they need me. Of course, I make myself available. I stay within reach. I show up whenever I’m called.
But sometimes, I wonder what it feels like to be seen — even without being lost.
Not as a solution.
Not as something to be used.
But simply… as someone worth noticing.
Because even a sharpener wears down. Little by little, it loses parts of itself just to make something else better. It doesn’t complain. It just keeps doing what it’s meant to do. Quiet. Reliable. Forgotten again once the job is done.
And I ask myself — is it enough to always be useful?
Or is there something more than being needed?
I don’t want to be remembered only in moments of dullness. I don’t want to exist only when something is missing. I want to be seen in the ordinary, in the in-between, in the quiet moments where nothing is required of me.
I want someone to reach for me not because they have to,
but because they choose to.
Because maybe being seen isn’t about being lost at all.
Maybe it’s about being recognized — fully, quietly, and without conditions.
And maybe, just maybe, even a sharpener deserves to be held without having to fix anything first.
