The girl who lives in my heart seems to have never grown up, yet in the blink of an eye, I am now called "Auntie" by young boys on the street. Standing at the threshold of my thirties, looking into the distance, the sign for "the age of no doubt" is already clearly visible. Age is no longer just a number added each year; it is more like a merciless mirror that strips away the illusions of various filters. Even with thousands of beautified selfies, it is hard to find one that can be confidently shown to the public. The fine lines at the corners of the mouth and the new eye bags all attest to the passage of time.
I recall the revelry of my twenties and the confusion of my thirties. In those years of "forcing new words to express old sorrow," we were ignorant and fearless, yet full of anticipation and hope for the future. Now, with less anticipation and more experience, I can only reminisce about the glorious past in the mundane, uneventful days. However, the lost youth has been exchanged for the priceless gift of growth.
I, who once didn't know how much water to use for boiling noodles, can now create four dishes and a soup from a single ingredient. I, who was at a loss and fumbling when facing a soft infant, have now raised her into a young woman who stands as tall as I am. When I first stepped onto the podium, my hands were cold and my words jumbled; day by day, I have learned to correct a recently made mistake without blushing or my heart pounding. Even when I was forced to retreat from the podium to the backstage, the unbearable sense of loss has now turned into serenity.
God knows what I have been through in between. Those days of extreme busyness, exhaustion, fragility, and helplessness were also the times when I harvested the most growth. Pain is the best calcium for growth, enabling one to struggle to stand up in the mud and walk toward the next intersection.
Eileen Chang said, "Your former goodness, your former badness, your former tears, and your former laughter, have actually always been there, and they are evergreen."
For better or worse, we should be grateful for the gifts of time and life, and believe in the conservation of gains and losses in life.
Although life is short, we still pray for peaceful times. By exchanging our lost youth for serenity in these years, we have no regrets.
