生命中的这些匆匆过客该如何面对?

Dani Shapiro considers those people that slip away—and how we can go on with bravery and compassion.
丹妮•夏皮罗细思生命中的匆匆过客，思考我们该如何心怀慈悲地勇敢前行。

1. The Friend Who Let You Down
1.伤害过你的朋友

We all have one of these. Some of us have more than one. By which I mean, a friend who we may laugh with, cry with, work side by side with, but who we know way deep down in our gut, in the place where intuition lies, doesn’t wish the best for us. This friend may be a very good person in all sorts of ways. She may not even mean to hurt us. But hurt she does. So it went with Helen, my friend of 15 years. One afternoon, Helen came by the house for a visit. She brought along a woman I didn’t know. My son was having a big old toddler tantrum at the moment and I was delighted by the tantrum. He had been terribly ill as an infant and had very nearly died. I was all for normal toddler behavior. He was red-faced, screaming, stamping his little feet. Alive! Healthy! As I scooped him up in my arms, I overheard Helen’s companion ask her how old my boy was. And I caught Helen’s reflection in a mirror as she mouthed: He’s two, rolled her eyes, and shook her head. It was a dreadful moment—a reckoning, a realization of her judgment, her lack of empathy. I called her on it, eventually. But what was there, really, to say? She apologized profusely. I accepted that apology, but I knew that things would never be the same between us. Helen was part of my learning curve about who can be safely let into my inner circle. Lesson learned.
我们都有这样的朋友，可能还不止一个。我们可以一起大笑，也可以相拥而泣，共事也没问题，但我们心知肚明，直觉告诉我们，这样的朋友并不是发自内心地希望我们过得好。他/她可能各方面都很好，可能也不是有意要伤害我们，但就是伤害到了。我结交了15年的好朋友海伦就是这样的人。有个下午，她来我家做客，还带了一个我不认识的女人。我儿子刚学会走路，正在大发脾气。我本来挺高兴，因为他刚出生时身体很不好，差点就活不下来了，我认为学步期的小孩儿发发脾气很正常。看他涨红着脸蛋，大吼大叫，跺着小脚丫子。多么活泼！多么健康！我一把将他抱起来时，不巧听到海伦的朋友问她，我孩子几岁了。我从镜子里看到海伦装腔作势地说：两岁了，翻了个白眼还摇了摇头。这一刻，我的心情立马跌落谷底，我揣测并意识到她的看法，也看出她没有同情心。我最后还是指出了她的不对。但有什么可说的？她再三道歉，我也接受了，但我知道我们之间再也回不去了。海伦让我学会了到底什么样的人才值得深入交往。这算是个教训。

2. The Friend You Let Down
2.你伤害过的朋友

Sarah and I met in college and instantly fell into an intense, sisterly friendship. I thought I would know her forever. After college, our lives diverged. I moved to New York City and started a career. Sarah moved back home, down south, got married and had kids way before I did. As the years passed, we had less and less in common, it seemed. I drifted farther and farther away. I stopped answering her calls. I was too young to understand that old friends are the ones who can remind you of who you once were. I was too young to know that while we may grow up and shed our younger selves like snakes molting skin, those selves are still important and we should keep close those who knew us when and remind us of the distance we’ve traveled. I didn’t yet know that there are many aspects of a friendship far more important than sharing a career, a neighborhood, a kid’s school, a life path. Sarah and I were connected on a level deeper than all that, and the fact that I’m not going to be pulling up my rocking chair next to hers in a nursing home some day makes me sad. I blew it. Sarah, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry.
萨拉和我在大学里一认识，立马就成了亲密无间、情同姐妹的好朋友。我以为我们会是一辈子的好朋友。但大学毕业后，我们的生活就不再有交集。我去纽约拼事业，而萨拉回南部老家结婚生子，当时的我离这样的生活还远着呢。时光荏苒，我们的共同点似乎越变越少了。我离她也越来越远了。我不再回她的电话。当时的我太年轻，不知道老朋友就是那些能使你回想起起自己曾经模样的人。当时的我太年轻，不知道尽管我们越长越大，像蛇蜕皮一样不断地摒弃曾经的自己，但曾经的自己依然重要，我们不应远离那些了解我们何时启程、行至何处的人。我当时不知道，除了分享工作、邻居、小孩学校和人生道路，一段友情中还有许许多多更加重要的方面。萨拉和我的情谊远远不止这个层面。令我难过的是，我知道以后就算进了养老院，我也不会把摇椅拉到她旁边。是我毁了这段友谊。萨拉，如果你读到这篇文章的话，我想和你说声对不起。

3. The One Who Was Just Too Close for Comfort
3.关系近得令人感到不舒服的人

Close your eyes for a moment. You’ll know just who I mean here, and it’s okay. You don’t need to say his name aloud. Maybe you’re married. Or he’s married. Or both. But you’ve envisioned a parallel life—one you will never live, and won’t ruin your perfectly wonderful life for—with this one. And this is no idle daydream. It’s just a little bit dangerous. When your eyes meet, you both feel it. Some small part of you wants to know what it would be like to be with him. You find yourself thinking: what harm could there be in a stolen afternoon? Of course you know the answer to this. So you need to keep your distance. A friendship doesn’t feel safe or possible. Dear reader, you need to lose him. You can’t keep him around. Okay. Now open your eyes. And count your blessings.
不妨把眼睛轻闭一会。你肯定知道我说的是谁，没事儿。你不必大声说出他的名字。也许你已结婚成家，也许他已成家、或者你俩都已成家。但你一直在幻想和他在一起的生活，虽然永远不可能，但这样想一想又不会破坏你现在的好日子。这不是无意义的白日梦，可是有几分危险。每每眼神相接，你们彼此都感受得到。你心中怀着小小的渴望，想要知道如果当初和他在一起会怎么样。你发觉自己在想：就偷闲一个下午，和他在一起有什么不好？答案如何，你心里当然有数。所以你需要和那个人保持距离。当朋友既不稳妥，又没希望。亲爱的读者，你必须舍弃他，不能留在他身边。好了，现在睁开眼睛吧。知足常乐。

4.The Death You Never Saw Coming
4.突如其来的死亡

As the Buddha once famously said, life is suffering. To love is to lose. In the natural order of things, we will eventually lose our own parents and in the natural order of thing, this will happen after we’re already adults. Except when it doesn’t. I lost my dad when I was young—suddenly, in a car crash. I never had a chance to say goodbye. He never had a chance to see me grow from a messed up girl into a much-less-messed-up woman. He died worried about me. I live with this. And yet, his early death shaped and transformed me in enormously positive ways. I grew up. I’ve spent my life trying to make him proud. We metabolize these sudden losses like shocks to our system, and they continue to live inside of us like fault lines, like the traumas they are. Ask anyone who has experienced any kind of shocking loss and they will tell you: the air today is just like it was on that day; the scent of hibiscus, of an oil refinery, of powdered donuts, brings it back. And suddenly the tears pool in our eyes, our hearts crack open. We live in all the beautiful, human brokenness of these losses. Our awareness becomes our teacher. Perhaps it even helps us to embrace the ordinary as the amazing turn of circumstance that it is.
佛曰：人生在世，苦海无边。心中所爱，终将逝去。我们终将长大成人，父母终将垂垂逝去，这是自然法则。然而，有时意外发生得太突然，未必等到我们长大。我年幼时，父亲横遭车祸，猝然离世。我没来得及和他好好道别，他再也看不到我从爱惹事的毛丫头长成稍稍安分一点的大人。他至死仍挂念我，我此生都怀念他。但是，他的英年早逝深深改变了我，让我更快懂事长大，从此不断努力，希望让他骄傲。亲人意外离世，我们只能默默消化。由此带来的冲击，随着我们成长，深入我们的内在，像道道断层，又像片片创伤。任何经历过亲人意外离世的人都会说，今天的空气和那天比，并没什么不同。木槿花的清新芬芳，炼油厂的刺鼻气味，或者甜甜圈的诱人甜香，都能唤起那天的回忆。突然之间，我们就会热泪盈眶，心如刀绞。人生在世，几家哀愁，伤逝如此美丽，我们与之如影随形。经历令我们学习成长，或许还帮助我们看开意外转折，寻得平淡安宁。

5. The Death You Had to Face Day by Day
5.日日逼近的死亡

My mom died when I was already an adult—a mother myself. Her death was slow, expected. This made it no easier. Losses like this begin well before the person is gone, because we imagine the world going on without them. The anticipation of it is like a slow, steady burn. We become used to grieving. We hold their hands, press compresses to their wounds, watch as medication drips into their veins, all the while faced with the impossibility of our own powerlessness. This too, is beautiful, human brokenness.
母亲去世时，我已经长大成人，已为人母。她虽然走得缓慢，也在料想之中，但同样令人哀伤。这样的伤痛在亲人去世之前就已开始，因为我们可以想见，哪怕他们去世，地球照样转动。想象没有他们的世界，就像灼烧般缓慢持久。我们变得习于悲痛，紧握着他们的双手，紧缚他们的伤口，紧盯着药物滴滴注入他们的静脉，时时刻刻，被自己的无能为力和无力回天所逼视。但这也是人类美丽的伤逝。

6. The Therapist/Guru/Mentor You Outgrew
6.完成己任的师者

Certain relationships have a built-in expiration date—or at least, they should. After all, the point of having a therapist, a teacher, a guru, a mentor, is to grow – and that very evolution will eventually mean that the relationship comes to close. In the best cases, that intense bond we feel with someone who has helped us tremendously can morph and become something else—something more equal—perhaps even a friendship. For that to happen, though, we have to become willing to lose the dynamic of a relationship that has been, in effect, one-sided. We have been helped. Someone has done the helping. And now perhaps we can discover just how far we’ve come.
有些关系固将完结，或至少该有完结的一天。毕竟，导师的意义在于帮助我们成长，无论是哪种导师，成长的过程都必将导致师徒关系终结。在最好的情况下，我们与恩师的深厚情谊会蜕变至一种更加平等的状态，甚至可能化为友谊。但是，要实现这点，我们就要摒弃原有的互动关系，之前只是导师单方面的付出。我们接受了教诲，师尊也完成了教诲。我们现在或许可以知道自己到底获得多少成长了。

7. The Person You Thought You’d Be
7.梦想成为的人

When I was a kid, I thought I would grow up to be an actress. I thought I would live in New York City, in a high-rise apartment building, with my husband and family of, oh, five or six kids. I thought I’d live an urban, impossibly sophisticated life. Money would be no object. Perhaps there would be a private plane. (I should mention here that these fantasies were firmly rooted in the 1980’s.) Well, I grew up and left the city for the country. I married and had one child—an only child, just like I had been. My husband and I work hard to make ends meet. But my life – my rich, imperfect, complicated, contented life—is the one I’ve built for myself. It’s an honest life. It’s a life of integrity. It’s a life I love. But to have it, I had to lose my fantasy straight out of the pages of a magazine of what it was that I thought I wanted – of who I thought I was. I was underselling myself, it turned out. To love, to really live is to become willing to lose people, places, things, dreams, even to lose versions of ourselves that no longer serve us. And in place of what is lost, something new emerges. It may not be what we imagined. But it is beautiful and it is ours.
小时候，我梦想长大后能成为女演员。我想和丈夫在纽约市的高层公寓里安家，嗯，然后再生五六个孩子。我要住在城区，最好能过上精致奢侈的生活。有大把大把的钱，至少得有一部私人飞机。此处我要说，在20世纪80年代，这可算是根深蒂固的幻想。但实际上，长大后我从市里搬到了村里，婚后只生了一个孩子，孩子和我一样，是独生子女。我和丈夫拼命工作，勉强糊口。但是这是我自己打拼出来的生活，丰富多彩，虽然算不上完美，但是不会单调乏味，也算心满意足。问心无愧，脚踏实地，我热爱这样的生活。但要过好这样的日子，就必须把我曾渴望的东西、想要成为的人，这一套从杂志里照搬来的幻想统统摒弃。结果，我算是赔本了。大胆去爱，真切活着，就是要敢于放手：人、地方、物质、梦想，甚至敢于抛却那些不再适宜现有生活的自我。旧的失去之后，总有新的再来。虽然未必事事如愿，但这终归是真正属于我们的美好生活。

Vocabulary:

daydream: 白日梦
hibiscus: 木槿