I’ve noticed something at train stations. Nobody uses the handrails anymore.

Up the stairs. Down the stairs. Everyone is gripping their phones, their coffee, their bags, their existential dread. But the handrail? Absolutely not.

I assume this is a lingering COVID-era thing. We spent two years being told not to touch things other people touched, and apparently some of us never emotionally recovered from the escalator pole.

But lately I’ve started using the handrail.

Not because I’m particularly concerned about falling. I use it because that is literally what it is there for. To steady you. To help you. To keep you upright when gravity, fatigue, or the general indignities of aging decide to test you.

And here’s the best part.

Nobody else is touching it.

Which means that handrail is probably the cleanest object in the entire train station.

So there I am, confidently holding onto the pristine, abandoned handrail while everyone else carefully navigates the stairs hands-free.

Perhaps this is maturity.

Perhaps it is wisdom.

Or perhaps I have simply reached the stage of life where I no longer care what strangers on the stairs think.

Either way, I’m holding the handrail.

And honestly?

It feels oddly liberating to finally use something exactly as it was intended.