If there is one thing the universe is in charge of, it is constantly sending messages to guide our lives. We also call them signs, and in short, God.

There is something that seems to guide our destiny. Sometimes I think it is playing chess with me; but I am always grateful, because even when I have misunderstood some signs, there are many that I got right and I did well.

For this exercise proposed by @ericvancewalton, in his Memoir Monday № 50, I am going to evoke the time of my early youth.
I was about 13 years old, perhaps, when I accepted a job offer: a foreign lady needed someone to iron her girls' clothes. My mother thought it was a light job and that I could do it. It is actually quite a pain to iron small clothes, but I tried hard, and in the meantime, I was just like in the milkmaid's fable, counting the chickens before they were born. We had not agreed beforehand how much she was going to pay me, but I imagined a reasonable amount. Mentally, I imagined what I would do with that money.

When I brought the ironed clothes, the lady paid me exactly half of what I expected.

That made me feel very bad, it disappointed me and I told my mother that I would not iron her anymore. The universe did not want me to dedicate myself to ironing other people's clothes. The best thing was for me to study and that is what I focused on. Already graduated from high school, I had not yet entered university, a friend suggested that we go out and look for work. The stores were asking for young people.

They let me into the first one we entered, they sold fabrics there, I stayed right away, it was early in the morning. At the entrance of the place, they placed me near other workers. There were five or six of us standing in different places. I was terrified just imagining how I was going to cut the fabric. I had never done anything like that before and I was afraid of damaging something. I think I stood there paralyzed, watching the others, every so often, enter the place with a potential client and then leave to take their place again. I wondered how it was that one in particular went and greeted the person who entered. I had been standing there for quite a while when I understood the procedure. The girls saw the people who came in and went ahead to say a characteristic: “striped shirt,” said one, “blue pants,” said another, “red purse” and so on, and if any of these people entered the place, the one who had said her characteristic went with him to serve him. I couldn't get any words out, shyness solidified on my lips, until the owner of the store called me and told me about my poor performance. I didn't know what to answer him either, I went home and slept all afternoon. I thank the universe that didn't give me the opportunity to sell even a meter of fabric, because then I would have dedicated my life to doing that, which wasn't really the job that suited me and the one that providence really had in store for me.

One day, an aunt showed up with a newspaper clipping, to tell me that I had a chance until the next day to submit my papers and enroll in the pedagogical school, and so I did and began to study there, the teaching career, which was the one that gave me the most satisfaction throughout my life.

I remember that in a complementary and obligatory subject I chose Drawing and Painting, and a professor suggested that I change to Guitar. I was in the pedagogical school's student group for four semesters, playing guitar. And years later, I encouraged my children to become musicians. That time the universe influenced that change of activity and when I retired from high school at 50, by chance, I entered to study drawing and painting in an art school, this being the activity that now gives me great satisfaction and benefits. Thanks to the universe.

_{The universe also gave me some grandchildren who are musicians and I am proud of them, here with the oldest.}

Thank you for your kind reading.

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