三十八岁的生日，农历和阳历是同一天。据说因为历法设计的原因，通常每隔十九年才会出现一次。

生日当天收到一对儿珍珠耳钉，非常喜欢，想记录一下，索性去拍了组人像。

小时候每年过生日的时候，爸妈都会带我去照相馆留影纪念，这个习惯到了青春期就停掉了。我开始觉得照片里的自己太丑了。回想起来，青春期疯狂长痘，开始在意个人形象，觉得自己很不好看。前几天和友人聊天，说起她儿子考试考砸了会说： “今年这题目出得不好！” ——啊，这绝佳的不内耗的心态，阿姨真应该向你学习！

在今天有妆造、灯光、修图的加持之下，照片可以轻松拍出理想中的样子。

不过拍摄结束，卸妆的时候，擦去厚厚的脂粉，洗掉硬硬的发胶，感觉每个细胞，每根头发丝儿都恢复了自由，发自内心的感叹，不用服美役真好呀！

三十八岁了。我常在清晨微亮时意识到，我已经悄然实现了当年二十多岁的愿望——成为一名母亲，先给自己发一朵小红花。

在新的一年里，希望自己可以养好精气神，继续和家人、孩子们虚度光阴，希望自己能不断地输出一些东西，也不断地吸收一些东西。

AI-generated translation.

On my thirty-eighth birthday, the lunar and solar dates happened to fall on the same day. Because of how the calendars are designed, this is supposed to happen only once every nineteen years or so.

On the day itself I received a pair of pearl earrings, which I love. I wanted to mark the occasion, so I went and had a portrait shoot done.

When I was little, my parents would take me to a photo studio every birthday for a keepsake portrait. The habit stopped when I hit puberty. I started thinking I looked too ugly in photos. Looking back, I was breaking out badly, suddenly caring about how I looked, and convinced I wasn’t pretty at all. The other day I was chatting with a friend whose son flunked a test and announced: “These exam questions weren’t well written this year!” — Ah, what a perfectly un-self-flagellating mindset. Auntie really should learn from you!

Today, with makeup, lighting, and retouching all on your side, photos can effortlessly come out the way you imagined.

But once the shoot was over and I was taking it all off — wiping away the thick powder, rinsing out the stiff hairspray — every cell and every strand of hair felt like it had been set free, and I sighed from the bottom of my heart: how wonderful it is not to be conscripted into the beauty corvée!

Thirty-eight. In the half-light of early morning I often realize that I’ve quietly fulfilled the wish I made in my twenties — to become a mother — and I award myself a little red flower.

In this new year, I hope I can build up my energy, keep wasting time happily with my family and kids, keep putting something out into the world, and keep taking something in.