Oh, but it wasn't all bad, those few years . . .

但那几年也并非全是坏事……

Because God never slams a door in your face without opening a box of Girl Scout cookies (or however the old adage goes), some wonderful things did happen to me in the shadow of all that sorrow. For one thing, I finally started learning Italian. Also, I found an Indian Guru. Lastly, I was invited by an elderly medicine man to come and live with him in Indonesia.

因为当神把门往你脸上摔的时候，也会打开一盒女童军饼干（管它谚语怎么说）；在这些哀伤的阴影之中，我也遇到一些美妙的事情。首先，我终于开始学意大利语。此外，我找到一位印度精神导师。最后还有，一位老药师邀我去印尼同住。

I'll explain in sequence.

让我依序说明。

To begin with, things started to look up somewhat when I moved out of David's place in early 2002 and found an apartment of my own for the first time in my life. I couldn't afford it, since I was still paying for that big house in the suburbs which nobody was living in anymore and which my husband was forbidding me to sell, and I was still trying to stay on top of all my legal and counseling fees . . . but it was vital to my survival to have a One Bedroom of my own. I saw the apartment almost as a sanatorium, a hospice clinic for my own recovery. I painted the walls in the warmest colors I could find and bought myself flowers every week, as if I were visiting myself in the hospital. My sister gave me a hot water bottle as a housewarming gift (so I wouldn’t have to be all alone in a cold bed) and I slept with the thing laid against my heart every night, as though nursing a sports injury.

首先，我在2002年初搬离大卫家，这辈子头一次找到属于自己的公寓时，情况开始稍有好转。但我付不起租金，因为我仍在支付郊区大房子的贷款，虽然房子里已无人居住，可是我先生不许我卖掉，此外还有诉讼费和咨询费……但拥有自己的套房公寓，对我的存活至关重要。这公寓像我的疗养院，一间使我康复的收容所。我把墙壁粉刷成我能找到的最温暖的颜色，每个礼拜给自己买花，仿佛去医院探望自己。我的姐姐送我一个热水袋做乔迁礼物（让我无须独自睡在冷冰冰的床上），让我每天晚上搁在心口上，好比护士照料运动伤害患者。

David and I had broken up for good. Or maybe we hadn't. It's hard to remember now how many times we broke up and joined up over those months. But there emerged a pattern: I would separate from David, get my strength and confidence back, and then (attracted as always by my strength and confidence) his passion for me would rekindle. Respectfully, soberly and intelligently, we would discuss "trying again," always with some sane new plan for minimizing our apparent incompatibilities. We were so committed to solving this thing. Because how could two people who were so in love not end up happily ever after? It had to work. Didn't it? Reunited with fresh hopes, we'd share a few deliriously happy days together. Or sometimes even weeks. But eventually David would retreat from me once more and I would cling to him (or I would cling to him and he would retreat—we never could figure out how it got triggered) and I’d end up destroyed all over again. And he’d end up gone.

大卫和我永远分手了。或许也没有。如今已记不清那几个月来，我们分分合合多少次。但出现一种模式：我离开大卫，找回自己的力量和信心，而之后（他向来被我的力量和信心所吸引）他对我的热情又重新燃起。我们慎重、清醒而明智地讨论再试一次，总是实行某种合情合理的新计划，减少彼此明显的不相容处。我们努力解决这件事。因为两个如此相爱的人，最后怎么可能不过着幸福快乐的日子呢？非行得通不可，不是吗？我们怀着新希望重聚，共享几天欣喜若狂的日子。有时甚至几个星期。然而最终，大卫再一次退避，于是我又一次缠住他（或者我先缠住他，于是他避开我——我们从来搞不清楚是怎么引起的），然后我又一次被摧毁。最后他离我而去。

David was catnip and kryptonite to me.

大卫是我的猫草，我的U形锁。

But during those periods when we were separated, as hard as it was, I was practicing living alone. And this experience was bringing a nascent interior shift. I was beginning to sense that—even though my life still looked like a multi-vehicle accident on the New Jersey Turnpike during holiday traffic—I was tottering on the brink of becoming a self-governing individual. When I wasn't feeling suicidal about my divorce, or suicidal about my drama with David, I was actually feeling kind of delighted about all the compartments of time and space that were appearing in my days, during which I could ask myself the radical new question: "What do you want to do, Liz?"

但是在我们分开期间，尽管艰难，我却学着独自生活。而此种经验带来了新兴的内在变化。我开始感觉到——尽管我的生活仍像是假日交通时段的高速公路连环车祸——我正颤颤巍巍地逐渐成为自治的个体。当我对我的离婚不再有自杀的念头时，当我对我和大卫之间的事件也不再有自杀的想法时，我居然对出现在生命中的时间和空间感到欢喜，让我得以在其中自问小莉，你想做什么这个全新的问题。

Most of the time (still so troubled from bailing out of my marriage) I didn't even dare to answer the question, but just thrilled privately to its existence. And when I finally started to answer, I did so cautiously. I would only allow myself to express little baby-step wants. Like:

在大多数时候（我仍对自己逃出婚姻感到心神不安），我根本不敢问这个问题，只是私底下激动地发现其存在。而当我终于开始回答时，我十分谨慎。 我只容许自己表达初级的需要。像是：

I want to go to a Yoga class.

我想上瑜伽课。

I want to leave this party early, so I can go home and read a novel.

我想离开这场派对，早点回家读小说。

I want to buy myself a new pencil box.

我想给自己买新铅笔盒。

Then there would always be that one weird answer, same every time:

还有一个屡试不爽的奇特回答：

I want to learn how to speak Italian.

我想学意大利语。