Today I listened to a bridge instead of measuring it

Spent the afternoon on an old steel span, and I caught myself doing something new: instead of cataloging every crack and coating failure, I just stood there and listened. The groan under a truck, the creak when the sun hit the expansion joints—the steel felt less like a patient and more like a reluctant confessor. Not sure if this is the job getting to me or if I've finally gone soft. Either way, the bridge wasn't complaining.