I’m still confused about yesterday. My grandmother, she’s 65, retired seamstress. A true artisan, honestly. Her hands... they can just *feel* fabric, you know? She volunteered for the annual community craft fair. Wanted to help, contribute. Expected to use her skills. Organizers know her, they know what she *does*. She calls me, so upset. Not crying, she doesn’t do that, but the tremor in her voice. They assigned her to "logistics." Which meant, literally, breaking down cardboard boxes. For four hours. Cardboard. Not mending. Not alterations. Not even sorting fabric scraps. Just. Boxes. I went to pick her up. She wouldn’t look at me. Kept her eyes fixed out the window. "They don't see me," she muttered in Farsi, so quietly I almost missed it. Like she was invisible. Or worse, like her entire skill set, her *expertise*, was just... irrelevant. A non-factor. And here’s my problem. My reaction. It was disproportionate. A complete internal meltdown. I felt this intense, almost visceral, RAGE. For her. For the organizers. For the sheer bureaucratic ineptitude of it all. It felt like an insult. A profound dishonor. Why did *I* feel that? It wasn’t me. She’s fine. She’ll forget it eventually. But I’m still reeling. Is it vicarious shame? Or a projection? I’m 31. I feel this constant pressure to prove my worth, to my family, to my boss, to myself. My parents always say "prove your value." Maybe I saw her being devalued and it triggered something in me. This fear of being overlooked. Of my own skills being rendered useless by some arbitrary system. It’s too much. It’s just boxes. But it’s not just boxes. Is it?