Kismet

I’ve been thinking about how we find our way to the places that feel like home; not because we planned for them, but because they quietly called us in. What follows is a reflection on my current job, the strange web of people and moments tied to it, and the feeling that none of it is random.


I don’t go to work. I go to where I was meant to end up.
Even if I sometimes forget it, especially when I’m tired and counting down to spring break, something always pulls me back to that quiet certainty.

I work as an éducateur en précoce, an early childhood educator in the preschool section of the Luxembourgish school system. It’s a role many in my field quietly dream of. Rare, sought-after, almost like a holy grail. These positions don’t come up often, and when they do, they are fiercely pursued.

My current post wasn’t even advertised. I had applied elsewhere, hoping for something stable, something close. The call came unexpectedly. None of the jobs I had applied for were available, but someone had quit that very morning. If I wanted the position, it was mine. A 75 percent permanent contract, what we call a contrat à durée indéterminée (CDI). I said yes without hesitation. I didn’t know then how much that yes would begin to echo.

What followed felt like a pattern forming just beneath the surface of ordinary days. At first, the connections made me laugh. Then I paused. Now they move something deeper in me, because they’ve become too many to ignore.

Some of the faces I see at work come from long ago, crossing time and space in ways I never expected. One of the primary school teachers went to high school with me. It’s not something we talk about, but the recognition is there. A quiet familiarity, a small anchor in the everyday.

The woman who runs the farm we visit twice a month was once a classmate too. We used to sit side by side, and now we watch children feed goats and dig their hands into the earth. Sometimes, while the kids giggle over muddy boots and hay-covered shoes, I wonder if she feels the same quiet astonishment I do. That we ended up here. That we crossed paths again through the little hands we guide.

Last year, a trainee’s evaluator turned out to be the only boy from my old class. We shared a soft connection back then. He was never “the boy” to me, just a kind, steady presence. Seeing him again now, both of us older and in new roles, felt like the past hadn’t disappeared. It had just quietly grown alongside us.

A colleague from the other class went to school with my sister. One of the girls in my current class has a father who is the brother of a former classmate. These are small threads, names that resurface like familiar songs heard in passing.

Marta, my current trainee, was evaluated by a woman who once taught my brother-in-law in primary school. It came up during a casual conversation, and we both paused, surprised. Another link I hadn’t seen coming.

The connections don’t stop there. Some of them reach into my past working life. One of the preschool teachers here is the great-aunt of a child I cared for deeply during my time at the Maison Relais, the after-school childcare service where I previously worked. Another teacher is married to a man I worked with closely during that same time. These aren’t surface recognitions. They’re soft reminders that the people who pass through our lives leave traces, even when we don’t expect to see them again.

We now have an autistic child in our class. His support teacher, part of the student support team for pupils with special educational needs )or équipe de soutien des élèves à besoins éducatifs spécifiques (ESEB)) worked briefly with me years ago. She left shortly after I arrived, yet we remembered each other. She later added that she had also gone to school with my younger sister.

The Maison Relais that supports our school recently hired a man I used to work with. Another familiar presence, quietly reappearing. And the evaluator of the trainee before Marta? She had done a summer job at a place where I was employed. Our paths only crossed for a short time, but long enough for the recognition to spark when we met again.

And then there was the substitute teacher. We were chatting, as colleagues do, and something in our conversation connected. She told me about her ex-boyfriend, the owner of a pub my husband Patrick and I know and frequent and the connection to a local band. Patrick worked  and still works closely with the band. He recorded both of their albums and helped with a few short film projects. She had been present during one of those filmings.

Later, she pulled out her phone and showed me a photo she had kept for eight years. In the picture, her dog sits beside a little girl. “Do you know who this is?” she asked. She didn’t, but had kept the photo because of her dog, and the sweet moment it had captured.

I looked at it… and recognised Amalia. My youngest. Barely seven years old at the time.

There was no reason for her to have that photo. No connection that should have led to it. And yet, there it was. A quiet piece of my life, handed back to me by someone who hadn’t even known she was holding it. Strange, soft, and deeply moving. As if something forgotten had found its way home.

None of this would surprise me if I had always lived or worked in this part of the country. But I hadn’t. For years, I was elsewhere. I worked, I taught, I moved forward, and never once encountered people from my past in the way I do now. This region had never been mine. Not until now.

From the very beginning, I felt at ease here. The person I work most closely with welcomed me with kindness, treated me as an equal. There’s mutual trust, a shared rhythm, and an understanding that doesn’t need to be spoken out loud. When we heard our class might be discontinued next year, she told me she would only consider a change if she could take me with her. And I would go without question. Not because I fear change, but because some working relationships bring out the best in you, and those are worth holding on to.

Since I started working here, I’ve changed too. I am more at ease, more grounded. Happier. There’s less tension running beneath my skin. I hold high expectations for those I work with, that hasn’t changed, but I carry them more calmly now. Something in me has softened.

I don’t believe in signs the way some people do. But I believe in resonance. I believe in the quiet feeling you get when something fits. And this place, this team, this community, these moments that keep folding the past into the present hum.