The 25 Year Cycle

Let's look back at when I turned 25 years old. This was April 3rd 1974. It was a fairly bleak time. I was in Adelaide and I remember going to see "The Exorcist" on my own. I don't know where Raelene was. Neither of us had managed to find any work since the start of the year and a couple of weeks later we were on our way to Sydney in the hope that the job market was more promising there.

Indeed it was and we both found employment quickly but I was quite unhappy in my job as a teacher for the remainder of the year (May to December). At the start of 1975, I began at AMP on Circular Quay as a Trainee Actuary which I had no interest in but the work companions were genial and one of them set me on the road to becoming a Psychiatric Nurse. I'd say that my 26th birthday marked the start of a new era and that the year from my 25th to my 26th was a difficult and transitional year.

Fast forward to my 50th birthday in 2019. I was on the road in China on April 3rd that year, cycling with a group of school students. It was my final year at the Australian International School in Singapore and I wasn't in great spirits. Toward the end of the year I made the happy choice of taking a job in Jakarta and by April 3rd of 2000, the occasion of my 51st birthday, my new life was beginning. Once again the year between my 50th and 51st birthdays was difficult and transitional.

I turned 75 in 2024 and the next month I had a fall that caused me considerable health problems. Other health problems dogged me throughout the year and I had the feeling that my life had run out of steam. I was just marking time. I still have that feeling but other health problems emerged soon after my 76th birthday and something big is coming up in June judging by my chart. So once again my 75th to 76th years have been difficult and transitional and a major change is almost upon me. I'm sure I'll have a lot to write about on this blog in the days to come, assuming I'm able to write at all.