There’s a shed in most backyards around here.
Sometimes it’s full of tools. Sometimes it’s just full of quiet.
For a long time, sheds were where men went to fix things. To tinker. To stay busy. To avoid sitting still for too long. But as the years roll on, a lot of blokes find themselves out there for different reasons — not because something’s broken, but because they’re thinking.
This column isn’t about engines, fences or footy. It’s about the other stuff men carry — the parts of life that don’t come with instructions and don’t get talked about much, especially in regional communities like ours.
Most men I know were taught early to get on with it. Work hard. Provide. Don’t complain. Don’t dwell. If something hurts, you push through. If something worries you, you keep it to yourself. Those rules worked for a long time. They built families, telling stories of effort, resilience and pride.
But the world shifted, and many of us weren’t given new rules — just the old ones, applied to a very different life.
I’ve watched good men struggle quietly. Men who were solid for everyone else, but unsure what to do when the noise dropped away. When the kids grew up. When work slowed or stopped. When the body didn’t bounce back the way it used to. When the role you’d worn for decades no longer fit quite right.
We don’t always have words for that. So instead, we stay busy.
We mow lawns that don’t need mowing. We start projects we don’t finish. We scroll. We make jokes to change the subject. We tell ourselves we’re fine — because that’s what we’ve always done.
This column isn’t here to hand out advice or tell anyone how to live. It’s not about being tougher or softer. It’s about being honest. About recognising that strength doesn’t disappear when things get hard — it just changes shape.
Sometimes strength looks like showing up.
Sometimes it looks like stopping.
Sometimes it looks like asking yourself a question you’ve avoided for a long time.
You don’t need to agree with everything written here. You don’t need to talk about it if you don’t want to. But if something in these words makes you pause — even briefly — then it’s done its job.
Because not every shed needs tools.
Some just need a bit of space.
