Repainting the Signs… (Because Apparently That’s My Job Too)…
When I read this daily writing prompt, I was like hell no!
I’m allergic to the news these days, genuinely. It makes my skin itch and my soul ache. I don’t read the local papers (all programmed, thanks), and I wouldn’t touch the telly news with a disinfected barge pole. But every now and then, something ridiculous slips through, a story so mind-numbingly uninteresting that it loops back around and hits a nerve. And somehow, in its blandness, it mirrors something in my own life. So here we are: me, the news avoider, writing about something I was never meant to see, and what it unexpectedly stirred up in me.
I came across a story on my news feed, nothing dramatic. Just a short piece about the local council repainting street signs in town. Two days of work, no road closures, no fuss. Not exactly edge-of-your-seat material, and I probably would’ve scrolled right past it… Except it got under my skin quietly.
There’s something about the simplicity of it, freshening up old signs, making sure people don’t lose their way. It’s the kind of job that goes unnoticed unless it’s not done. And that’s what caught me: how many of us spend our lives doing just that? The quiet, necessary, mostly invisible work of keeping things on track. The emotional equivalent of pointing people in the right direction, often while still trying to figure out our own.
I’ve done a lot of that. Lived a lot of my life quietly in the wings. Making things better, smoother, less chaotic for others, often without them even realizing it. No big headlines, no medals. Just quietly repainting signs. Reassuring someone they’re not lost. Saying “this way, love,” even when I’m knackered and holding the brush with my last bit of energy.
And we don’t talk about that kind of work enough. We’re obsessed with big wins, dramatic life changes, flashy new starts. But what about the slow, humdrum graft? The holding space, the listening, the small kindnesses that never make a noise?
So yeah, the article was boring. But maybe boring is where all the real stuff lives. The showing up. Trying again. Loving someone through their storm, and yourself through yours.
And maybe, in a world full of shouting and rushing, being someone who quietly repaints the signs is actually a bit of a superpower.
Mae 🧡
UNDER THE WILL... OVER THE DRAMA... 
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