《美食祈禱和戀愛》Chapter 30 (63):我不走尋常路

Almost certainly, other people who attended this party came away with different images than I did. Any number of the other guests could have felt great envy for this beautiful woman with her healthy new baby, for her successful artistic career, for her marriage to a nice man, for her lovely apartment, for her cocktail dress. There were people at this party who would probably have traded lives with her in an instant, given the chance. This woman herself probably looks back on that evening—if she ever thinks of it at all—as one tiring but totally worth-it night in her overall satisfying life of motherhood and marriage and career. All I can say for myself, though, is that I spent that whole party trembling in panic, thinking, If you don't recognize that this is your future, Liz, then you are out of your mind. Do not let it happen.

幾乎可以肯定的是，參加這場派對的其他人帶着和我不同的印象離開。許多客人都會羨慕這位生了一個健康新生兒的美麗女子，她成功的藝術事業、嫁給了一個好男人、她漂亮的公寓、她的派對禮服。只要有一丁點機會，派對上有人會很願意和她易地而處。這名女子自己回顧這一夜——倘若她曾想起來的話——的時候，或許看作是她整個滿意的母親、婚姻、事業生涯當中，一個勞累卻完全值得的夜晚。然而對於我自己，我只能說，我在整場派對上因恐慌而顫抖，心想：倘若你看不出這就是你的將來，小莉，那麼你真是頭腦有問題。別讓它發生。

But did I have a responsibility to have a family? Oh, Lord—responsibility. That word worked on me until I worked on it, until I looked at it carefully and broke it down into the two words that make its true definition: the ability to respond. And what I ultimately had to respond to was the reality that every speck of my being was telling me to get out of my marriage. Somewhere inside me an early-warning system was forecasting that if I kept trying to whiteknuckle my way through this storm, I would end up getting cancer. And that if I brought children into the world anyway, just because I didn't want to deal with the hassle or shame of revealing some impractical facts about myself—this would be an act of grievous irresponsibility.

但我是否有責任成立一個家？天啊——責任。這字眼在我身上下功夫，直到我對它下功夫，仔細研究它，把它拆解成“迴應”（respond）的“能力”（ability），這兩個真正定義它的字。而我終須迴應的事實是，我的每個細胞都叫我擺脫婚姻。我心中某個預警系統正在預報，假使我持續握緊拳頭穿越這場風暴，最後我會罹患癌症。假使我不顧一切把孩子帶到世界上，只因爲我對揭發自己某些不切實際的真相感到麻煩或恥辱而不願想辦法處理的話——這將是一種嚴重的不負責任之舉。

In the end, though, I was most guided by something my friend Sheryl said to me that very night at that very party, when she found me hiding in the bathroom of our friend's fancy loft, shaking in fear, splashing water on my face. Sheryl didn't know then what was going on in my marriage. Nobody did. And I didn't tell her that night. All I could say was, "I don't know what to do." I remember her taking me by the shoulders and looking me in the eye with a calm smile and saying simply, "Tell the truth, tell the truth, tell the truth."

但是最後，是我的朋友雪柔對我說的一席話指引了我。就在那一晚的派對上，就在她發現我躲在我們的朋友那層頂樓畫室的浴室裏嚇得發抖，朝臉上潑水的時候。雪柔當時不清楚我的婚姻狀況，沒有任何人清楚。那天晚上我並未告訴她，我只說：“我不知如何是好。”我記得她握着我的肩，笑容平和地看着我的眼睛，只說：“說實話，說實話，說實話。”

So that's what I tried to do.

於是我試着去做。

Getting out of a marriage is rough, though, and not just for the legal/ financial complications or the massive lifestyle upheaval. (As my friend Deborah once advised me wisely: "Nobody ever died from splitting up furniture.") It's the emotional recoil that kills you, the shock of stepping off the track of a conventional lifestyle and losing all the embracing comforts that keep so many people on that track forever. To create a family with a spouse is one of the most fundamental ways a person can find continuity and meaning in American (or any) society. I rediscover this truth every time I go to a big reunion of my mother's family in Minnesota and I see how everyone is held so reassuringly in their positions over the years. First you are a child, then you are a teenager, then you are a young married person, then you are a parent, then you are retired, then you are a grandparent — at every stage you know who you are, you know what your duty is and you know where to sit at the reunion. You sit with the other children, or teenagers, or young parents, or retirees. Until at last you are sitting with the ninety year-olds in the shade, watching over your progeny with satisfaction. Who are you? No problem—you're the person who created all this. The satisfaction of this knowledge is immediate, and moreover, it's universally recognized. How many people have I heard claim their children as the greatest accomplishment and comfort of their lives? It's the thing they can always lean on during a metaphysical crisis, or a moment of doubt about their relevancy—If I have done nothing else in this life, then at least I have raised my children well.

然而，擺脫婚姻很不好過，不止因爲法律與財務糾葛，或生活方式的劇變，（如同我朋友黛博拉的英明指點：“從未有人因爲平分傢俱而喪命。”）而是情感的退縮，走出傳統的生活方式，失去原本擁有的所有安慰，而使你喪命。與配偶成立一個家庭，是一個人在美國 （或任何）社會找到延續和意義的最基本方式之一。每回去母親在明尼蘇達的孃家聚會，我便重新發現此一事實，看見每個人都在自己的崗位上堅守多年。首先你是個孩子，而後成爲青少年，而後結婚，而後生子，然後退休，然後爲人祖父母——你在每一階段都清楚自己的身份，清楚自己的職責，清楚家庭聚會時坐在哪個地方。你和其他的孩子、青少年、父母或退休人士坐在一起。直到最後，你和一羣九十歲老者坐在樹陰下，心滿意足地照看你的子孫後代。你是什麼人？沒問題——你是創造“這一切”的人。這種認知帶來的滿足感是即時性的，而且舉世公認。有多少人說過，他們的孩子是自己生命中最大的成就與安慰？這是在危機時期或猶豫時刻得以仰賴的東西——我這輩子倘若什麼也沒做，至少把孩子撫養得很好。