49

My reflections @ age 48.

I have already written a lot about how the world has completely changed for us. I quitted CASETiFY in January. I spent all my time at the school, hoping to get it ready for us to hand it over to the team. Then the church bought our place, and we now need to look for a new place and new money.

Mom’s health is improving and deteriorating as the same time. She can now walk more independently. She is still paranoid and is finding it hard to accept the changes. She finds it hard to deal with our move to the UK.

Jing is more moody. Melancholic. She finds it hard to find people to relate to. I often worry about her feeling of loneliness. I sometimes blame ourselves for not pushing her to learn to deal with people. We might have emotionally and socially spoiled her by being too empathetic. I often wonder if “you can always talk to us” is actually a bad parenting approach. Perhaps we should have forced her to deal with her emotions on her own.

Chai fell in love with football. He remains adorable and fun to be with. He had a fantastic year with Indy. I wonder how he would adapt to the new environment. I wonder how we will cope with his struggles.

Honey has gotten sick quite a bit this past year- a mysterious and strong reaction that took months of steroids to get rid of. Strong allergic reactions to something. Poor thing. I am glad I had the freedom and time to take care of her.

And then, for nor and I, I think we have gotten closer. I spent a lot more time at the school this year. It gave me a closer glimpse of her. I think I have found a better way to interact with her, because the proximity helped me better understand her. She is also very stressed out. She is doing an impossible task. Perhaps the most entertaining thing was, because of the sale of our premise, we were forced to explore alternative paths. As we went through this journey, we realized we were the best run Waldorf school in Hong Kong (Yes, best in my own self-fulfilling metrics). It felt good to know that all the effort Maggie and nor put into the school turned out to be okay.

And then, of course, 49 will be the year when we move to the UK. 49 will be the first year of a 7th year cycle. I find it interesting when I looked back at my previous cycles:

Cycle 1: Aug 1976 to Aug 1983:

Cycle 2: Aug 1983 to Aug 1990:

Cycle 3: Aug 1990 to Aug 1997:

Cycle 4: Aug 1997 to Aug 2004:

Cycle 5: Aug 2004 to Aug 2011: Yr 1: Joined Nike. Yr 7: Complete restart

Cycle 6: Aug 2011 to Aug 2018: Yr 1: Joined Apple. Yr 7: Started IWS

Cycle 7: Aug 2018 to Aug 2025: Yr1: Left Apple, Yr 7: Left casetify. Forced path for school.

Cycle 8: Aug 2025 to Aug 2032: Yr1: As a family we will move to UK, and this year will also decide what’s next for the school.

Oh well. You can’t say everything moved in precise 7-year-cycles, but this 7-year-cycle pattern definitely rhythms.