Feeling broken.

Broken down and old - but useful?

I can identify with this barn.  When I was young and filled with life and the excitement of living, I had a purpose and others appreciated what I did for them.  Now, though, after life's events have weathered away the paint and peeled off the shingles, I lie around and wonder what has happened to me.  Life used to abound inside of me; now only weeds live there, and maybe mice, which have been an eternal constant.  The difference is cats used to keep their population down, but now even the cats don't come.

Days come and go without much meaning.  The only changes I see are the seasons.  They are not as kind as they used to be.  Winter is cold, its chills are no longer kept at bay because the doors are broken.  Summer is too hot.  There is no one to open the shutters.  Spring and fall just remind me that the life has gone out of me, literally.  No more animals to house, no more births to witness, and no young to see grow into adulthood.  I feel abandoned and empty.

As I look around me I see new things.  The house is kept up and a family lives there.  Their laughter comes morning and night; especially at night when the cool air enhances the distance sound can travel.  Sheds house what I used to.  The nature of those things are different, but their function and relationship with the people the same.  Cars instead of horses.  Electrical devices instead of belt driven machines.  Worse of all are the things adorning the walls, no longer carefully placed on my beams. 

I hear them talking about me.  It's old, and been around here forever.  No longer useful, and an eyesore to be sure, but still part of the place.  Like the trees and the creek, except that those get stronger with time.  Things need to be fixed, but why bother?  Maybe the boards are worth something.  Iron is only bringing in $0.02 per pound, so it is not worth the effort to even recover that.  A crew could come in and dismantle the whole thing; be done in a couple of hours.  Then we wouldn't have to think about you any more.

I look around at the people I love.  Age has a way of eroding the very fiber of their being.  I think of my own life and contemplate the things I have endured.  Today the scares are still there, like the hanging door, only not so visible to others.  I myself have not escaped the ravages of time, and the life that once excited and stirred in me now casts me down as I battle the demons of harm which still try to crawl up to daylight.  Occasionally they succeed in finding that which they seek.  Fortunately, the people that I love, love me too.  They can forgive and forget.  They still see use in this old building.  And for them I am always there, even though my roof is worn and my paint is faded.  No, my time has not yet come.