My colleague Flora shared that she would ask AI to tell stories about her own life. It’s like a diary on steroids. She feeds it random notes about life events and asks it to turn them into an exciting story. She says it’s fantastic because the writing helps her appreciate her own life more.
I thought that made sense, so I gave it a try. But instead of asking it to simply dramatize my life, I asked it to write a short recap in the style of Anne Lamott. I have to say, I really don’t dislike the outcome.
Life is exactly as cheesy as Forrest Gump said it would be, only somehow with less shrimp and more spreadsheets.
In the beginning of June, our landlord bought the building that holds our school—the one we have poured ourselves into for years—and suddenly, the clock began ticking. We had a year to figure it out: where to move, how to move, how to find HK$10 million we didn’t have, and, apparently, how to keep breathing while doing all that.
We kept running the school anyway, because what else do you do? You keep the kids laughing, you rehearse plays, you clap for presentations, you cry through graduation. You do a fundraising concert that feels both fun and desperate. You look like a normal school on the outside, but inside you’re a duck kicking hard under water, praying the surface holds.
Then came the maybe-alternative paths. On paper, it’s hopeful—a chance to secure the school’s future, maybe even thrive. But it’s also terrifying. Losing control of what we’ve built. The risk of a scam. The weird feeling of entering a whole other universe we don’t belong to. We are a tiny school, hand-built by two very hands-on, naïve, middle-class mothers who once thought bake sales and grit could fix anything. Now we need to deal with billionaires who run global juggernauts while sipping sake at golf country clubs and massively powerful religious groups whose unwavering faith fuels every decision they make. Sometimes it feels like we’re children playing at a table we were never invited to.
Meanwhile, my days are swallowed by the school. Clearing out storerooms full of forgotten costumes and cracked chalkboards. Running the day-to-day like a frantic stagehand before opening night. Making posters, crunching numbers, negotiating with landlords, lawyers, and people who probably have private jets. It’s exposing—the strengths I didn’t know I had, the weaknesses I can’t ignore. I feel trapped, excited, nervous, all in one breath.
And then there’s the other move, the one that feels even heavier. Visas for the kids. Figuring out how to ship the dog without breaking her spirit. Flights booked, an Airbnb reserved. Packing? Not really. My wife hasn’t started practicing driving either, which adds its own quiet hum of anxiety under everything else.
It’s absurd and terrifying and holy all at once, this life. You wake up every morning not sure which thing is going to break next, or whether you’ll laugh or cry about it, or both. And yet, somehow, we’re still standing here, doing this mad, impossible thing.
So, why am I doing all this? Honestly, it’s not the school. If it were just the school, I could walk away. I know the families would be fine—they’d find their way. No, the “why” is my wife, her dream, her stubborn, beautiful vision for what this school can be. I’m in it for her. For us. That’s it. And maybe that’s enough.
As for the rest—the future, the so-called “dots” everyone promises will connect—I don’t know. Maybe there is karma. Maybe not. But what is real is that things happen. Good things, hard things, dull, forgettable in-between things. It’s part of the deal. And the pain, I think, comes when we cling—when we wish for something more or different than what’s actually in front of us.
Everything comes and goes. Even this moment, this swirl of anxiety and purpose and uncertainty—it feels so real, and it is, but it’s also passing. Just another wave. Just another story I’ll look back on and barely remember the details of, even though right now it feels like everything.
Maybe the wisest thing to do isn’t to look for meaning in every turn or try to solve it like a puzzle. Maybe it’s just to be here, let it all be what it is, and not pretend to know how it ends. And for now, that feels like enough.
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