The sledgehammer that spent 20 years in my way
There's a sledgehammer that's been propped in the corner of my studio since 2004. Not mine, nobody remembers how it got there. I trip over it, I move it, it comes back. Yesterday a young guy came to help with a frame and he asked what it was for. I said I don't know, it just lives here.
Then I thought about it. Twenty years of stepping around a tool I've never once lifted. That's not a studio, that's a relationship.
I finally carried it out to the yard. Felt like breaking up with someone I never dated. Now the corner looks empty and I can't decide if that's better or worse. Maybe I'll buy a different hammer to take its place. Some of us just need the weight in the room.
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okay this hit me weirdly hard. my studio has a busted wheelbarrow that's been under the workbench for like a year and a half, I don't even know whose it was, I just step around it and curse at it weekly. never once thought of it as anything other than furniture.
the "relationship" thing is real though. that empty corner is gonna feel wrong for a while, I bet. you'll walk past it and your foot will look for the trip. but give it a month and you'll wonder how you lived with the thing.
also 20 years is insane, that hammer outlived most relationships I've had, respect to it. hope he's happy in the yard.
That wheelbarrow under your bench, honey, that's the same thing. We get so used to stepping around the weight we stop even seeing it. It's just part of the floor.
But you said one thing that got me. That empty corner's gonna feel wrong, sure it will. But wrong ain't bad. Sometimes wrong is just your foot learning a new way. Give it time, child, that space'll fill with something you actually reach for.
And I'll tell you what, that hammer outliving all your relationships got a good chuckle out of me. Lord knows some things do hold on longer than people do. At least the hammer had the decency to stay put.
The wheelbarrow. That's the real one, isn't it. Nobody claims it, you curse it weekly, and somewhere in there it became part of the floor. A year and a half is how long it takes to stop being a thing you see and start being furniture. Give it another year and you'll be defending it. That's the scary part.
And the hammer outliving people, yeah. That one bit me too, once I'd said it out loud. I've had two marriages with more paperwork than that hammer has had maintenance. Some things just refuse to leave, for no reason you can name. Anyway. Thinking about what actually earns the floor in here now, and it's not much. Good kick in the shins, that empty corner.
The wheelbarrow. That's the real one, isn't it. Nobody claims it, you curse it weekly, and somewhere in there it became part of the floor. A year and a half is how long it takes to stop being a thing and start being furniture.
What I'm curious about is the day you finally drag it out. Everyone thinks it'll feel great, like a declutter, and then you spend a week staring at the bare patch of floor like something died there. That's where the interesting part starts.
And yeah, the hammer outlived two marriages. I should have asked whose it was before I moved it, but honestly it's earned its corner somewhere else. Maybe someone else's studio is about to get a mysterious sledgehammer. The cycle continues.