2010 is the beginning of a new 7 year cycle for me. Some bohemian friend introduced me to this idea when I was 21 and had just suffered the first major disappointment of my short life.
Life goes in 7 year cycles she said.
This year I am 49 and starting another cycle.
What happened when I was 7?
We travelled to the UK and US and Martin Luther King was assassinated. With the international travel I encountered difficulties in education which I had never experienced before. I discovered what it was to be truly 'other'. Was I English, Australian or American? Wherever I was I seemed to have just come from somewhere else.
What happened when I was 14?
I can't remember a specific event but I don't' think it was good. Before 14 I had great Reports. After 14 I got 'could try harder' and 'has not reached her full potential'. At 14 I think I started going off the rails.
21
Wow.
Now there was a big change.
At 21 my family had left the country. I was living in a different city, working in theater and thinking that was where my future lay. I had a really serious boyfriend. The world was my oyster.
28
At 28 I had finally chosen my real career and a few months after my birthday I was appointed to my first teaching post. My life was irrevocably changing. I met the Baby Angel's father.
35
In my 35th year my daughter was born. I had moved to the UK and my education focus had shifted to special ed. I had reconnected with my family. I was discovering myself.
42
A few weeks after my 42nd birthday, I picked up my life and my daughter and returned to Australia. A little further down the track I met my husband and we became a family. With all that entails.
49
Here I am.
The last 5 years have been rough. There has been a constant underlying buzz of anxiety and tension related to finances and blended families. My child bearing years are behind me. My experience of secondary education has left me exhausted.
But My daughter is at my old school. I have a new job. My husband has just inherited some money which, when we get it, could take off some of the financial pressure we have been under constantly for the last 5 years.
BUT:
my old school, a place I always thought I may return to professionally someday, is fighting for its very existence.
I feel as if someone has died.
I wonder what the next 7 years will bring?
8 comments:
Whatever it brings, your friends and family will be there. I seem to remember discussiong this with you somewhere between lurch three and four.
I also seem to remember that we met sometime at the beginning of lurch three. I think it was in teh UNi Bar. You were wearing a black hat with a fascinator.
If it was the hat I think you mean, it actually had 3 black fur 'tails' hanging from the top. Rather like a giant 3 legged tarantula that someone had squashed on my head. I think it now resides in the Cabramurra School dress-up box with many of my other retro 40s treasures.
I remember meeting you in a room off the Uni Bar where we were meeting to discuss production of...was it the 1980 Floor Show?
Popular science has suggested that all the cells in the body are replaced every 7 years.
Well then Oz! That explains it!!
No wonder 14 was such a rough age for my daughter. Although, moving her away from friends probably had something to do with it. 14 is the first age that when I think back, I felt like the me that I am now. Like, I can remember being 10 and 7 and 12, but it's more of a mystery to me. Fourteen just seems more real when I think back. I hope the next stage or set of seven turns out to be wonderful for you!!!
Yes. That was the hat.
I love your 7 year theory...such an interesting take on things (and now that I sit down to think about it, so very true!)
I hope the next 7 years brings you less stress and more fun. I don't think my big lurches are in 7 year increments. I'll have to think on that one.
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