To you who are losing your use and experiencing growing pains

The vase was originally an item that served as the face of a classy store.
At the end of the year, instead of the common Christmas tree, they would put up branches with sophisticated Christmas decorations and show off their elegant appearance.
But that Christmas decoration was a devil.
The Christmas decoration fell over and broke the mouth of the vase.


The vase that was once placed in the most prominent spot in the store was suddenly thrown out into the cold, dark streets.
How many days have passed like that?
Someone is looking at a vase covered in dust with a pile of trash under the flickering streetlights.
It was an old lady who lived near the store.


Grandma takes the vase home, washes the dust off it, digs a hole in the bottom, fills it with dirt, and puts it out on the sunny veranda.
But Hwa-byung doesn't like the veranda, which is full of musty earthy smell, scurrying bugs, and messy things.
I also don't like the flower pots that we call 'Number 10' in our own way.
I feel so miserable that I have to live with plants that don't even look like plants.
I feel like my grandmother's veranda is not the place for me.

Your usefulness is not over yet.

There was a time in the past when the flower pots were shining brightly, but the vase didn't know it.
A wine bottle that once served in a Parisian restaurant, a cocktail glass that enjoyed the sunset with guests at a seaside cafe, a kettle that brewed savory corn tea, a soybean paste jar that kept my grandmother's family's soybean paste flavor... Without exception, we all lived wonderful lives worthy of our names and purposes.
But they become empty bottles, their handles melt, they crack… Each of them has served its purpose for one reason or another, and they come to Grandma’s veranda to start a new life.


It's not that the flower pots don't miss the past, but no one is lingering on the past.
Although they can no longer make wine, brew tea, or ripen kimchi, they can now sprout, flower, and bear fruit.
As I watch those flower pots, the vase's heart slowly changes as the seasons change.

Life is always unpredictable.
Things don't always go as planned.
Even if things go as planned, there are countless times when the results don't match expectations.
At times like that, we often feel very small, helpless, and useless.
It seems like a shining moment will never come to me.
To you who is sighing and caught up in such feelings, “My Usefulness” speaks.
Your usefulness is not over yet, and you can shine again.