Thirty Years of Hard Work

Li Jingshu's "thirty years" is composed of the baby's cry, the soup simmering on the stove and her husband's suit. She was once a talented girl from a prestigious school, and now she is a "happy full-time wife" in the eyes of others. Only she knew that this "happiness" was quietly swallowing her up, making her disconnected from the entire world. A gathering of old classmates was like a cruel mirror, reflecting her stagnation and paleness. As soon as the idea of returning to work sprouted, I encountered unanimous opposition from my family: "You are already thirty, what else can you do?" "What about the children?" At the age of thirty, her life seemed to be welded to a fixed track. The unwillingness in my heart is like weeds growing wildly. Li Jingshu decided that even if she started from the most basic and trivial job, she would rediscover her name, not just "XX mother". This "hardening" is two-way: it is necessary to sharpen professional skills that have been neglected for a long time, and it is also necessary to sharpen the courage to say "no" to the inherent life. This is a game between family and self, a tug-of-war between daily necessities and KPIs. There is no cheating in "Thirty Years", only how a woman carves out a space for her "self" little by little in addition to her status as wife, mother, and daughter-in-law, and tempers the light of independence on the whetstone of life.