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“Doesn’t sound like a best friend to me!” another student called out.
He chuckled. “I agree with that hypothesis. But, on this day, when E was walking down a road and an SUV missed the signal and pelted toward her, her first thought was—hah! Now Jen will know I was right!”
I couldn’t help cracking a smile at that. That sounded like something I’d do.
“But in the end, E wasn’t all that hurt, which was a blessing, really. When the paramedic found her squatting in a coffee shop, trembling as she nursed a slight bruise on her forehead, he asked her if she was okay.”
“Right then, all E could think was what the universe had planned for her.” Professor Moore’s eyes crinkled. “She was at a place in her life where nothing was working out. She had a deadbeat job and a boring idiot of a boyfriend who thought adventures meant going to MacD and getting double burgers. Life waspredictable.”
The classroom was listening intently.
“So, the first thing she decided to change was the way she was living. And that’s where fate comes in. You see, when we think of fate, we automatically shun it right at the get-go because we think we’re better than our destinies. We think we can’t afford to rely on old wives’ tales about a chosen one or a dream job.”
“But—”
This was me, putting my foot through a door that was about to close. Or me, running straight into a locked door and feeling it smash on my face. My quintessential self.
“Yes, Ms. Sullivan?”
“Don’t you think relying on fate all the time could be risky? It gives us a chance to blame the world for everything that we do wrong... and I think that’s weak.”
“Oh, I completely agree. But what if fate was never meant to help you make your decisions? What if it was just there toshow you the way?”
It was a sudden and profound revelation, a true Eureka moment. It was like the heavens had parted and a beam of light had shone down on me.
Professor Moore continued. “I’ve had my moments, by the way. This one time, I realized that I had been wearing my shirt backward for the entire day.”
I found that hard to believe but listened anyway. There would be a point to this story.
“How could I have been so oblivious? I had walked past people on the street, chatted with coworkers in the office, and no one had bothered to tell me! Had they been too polite to point it out? Or did they all secretly think I was starting a new fashion trend?”
Everyone was openly giggling or full-out guffawing now. I sat in-between, completely out of my territory. This felt like I was in a stand-up comedy show, and not a bad one.
“I looked down at my shirt, which now looked like a weirdly designed bib. I felt a sudden urge to crawl under my desk and hide, but unfortunately, I had to go to a meeting. I wondered if I could convince everyone that it was a new avant-garde style, but who was I kidding?”
“You have to do this in class someday, Professor.”
He didn’t seem to mind the jibes at all. They only made him smile.
“Hey, at least I felt like I was in a spotlight. People were staring at me, and I could hear their whispers. ‘Is that guy wearing his shirt backward?’ ‘Maybe he's starting a new trend.’ Of course, I don’t know if they really said that—but you know, the mind.”
“I had an important interview that day. I finally arrived, and as soon as I walked in, everyone burst out laughing.”
“How the hell did you handle that, professor?”
“Well, inside, I wanted to crawl into a hole and die. But then I realized that maybe this was the universe's way of telling me to stop taking myself so seriously. Maybe it was time to embrace my inner weirdness and let my freak flag fly.”
I couldn't... this man was something else. He brought a lightness into this entire classroom. His walking in was like curtains opening in a dark space and revealing a world struck by morning sunlight. It was so sweet.
“Who expects an astronomy professor to be conventional, anyway? So I ended up telling them the universe had convinced me that I needed to try something different if I wanted to stick out. And I did stick out, technically. Like a cactus in a tropical forest. I got the job, too.”
The class began clapping, and I joined in. This wasn’t what I’d expected at all. I’d come thinking we’d study maps of stars and I’d found a long lecture aboutfate.
That could have been interesting too, but this? This was infinitely better.
This was him telling us all to chase our dreams, even if we wanted to become DJs and live in our parents’ basement after college. So long as we were open to the universe gently chartering our courses and pointing out if we were going wrong.
I’d often thought my guardian angel would be crying in whatever plane they were in, given some of the very questionable life choices I’d made.
