我是年過40,沒有孩子的單身女人,我過得很開心

A few months before my 42nd birthday, I was out to dinner with friends and found myself seated next to a well-known older male writer.

42歲生日的前幾個月，我和一些朋友外出吃飯，發現鄰座是一位知名且年長的男作家。

I happened to be in the final stages of finishing a proposal for a memoir about being a single woman over 40 without children, and was inwardly marveling at the timing of our encounter. I was a fan of his. Perhaps he might offer some wisdom? Words of encouragement?

當時我正在給一本書的創作計劃收尾，那是一本關於一個年過四十還沒有孩子的單身女人的自傳。我暗地裏對我們相遇的時機感到驚訝。我是他的粉絲。或許他能給我提供一些建議，或是鼓勵的話？

As drinks were delivered I sketched the outline of the story: No one had prepared me for how exhilarating life could be on my own. I was traveling all the time, doing what I wanted, when I wanted, released from the fear of the clock that had dogged me through my 30s. Conversely, no one had warned me of the ways in which it would actually be difficult; my mother had been very ill, for instance, and part of the book was about caring for her.

當飲料被端上來的時候，我向他簡述我的故事梗概：沒有人告訴過我，獨居生活可以如此興奮刺激。只要我願意，就可以在任何時候去旅遊，做一切我想做的事，而且不再像30多歲時那樣，對緊緊相逼的時光感到恐懼。但是，也沒有人告誡過我這樣的生活可能真正面臨的困難。比如我媽媽病得很嚴重，書中有一部分內容就是關於照料她。

No sooner had I finished than the famous writer placed his glass firmly on the white tablecloth, leaned back and declared: “Glynnis MacNicol, you have a terrible life!”

我一講完，這位有名的作家就把眼鏡重重摔在白色桌布上，身體向後一靠，說：“葛林妮絲?梅克尼可(Glynnis MacNicol)，你的生活可真糟糕！”

Not exactly the feedback I was hoping for.

這完全不是我所期待的迴應。

He continued: “You’re all alone in the world, and have no one to help you.” He turned to my friends, dramatically interrupting their conversation. “Do you know how terrible this woman’s life is? She’s all by herself!”

他接着說道：“你獨自一人在這世上，沒有一個人能幫你。”他轉向我的朋友們，戲劇性地打斷他們說話：“你們知道這個女人的生活有多糟糕嗎？她全靠自己一個人！”

My friends managed to snort back their drinks, barely. “But I’m fine,” I protested lightheartedly, hoping to return the discussion to writing. “I’m quite enjoying myself.”

我的朋友們勉強在杯子後面哼了幾聲。“但我過得挺好的，”我隨口抗議道，希望能把話題重新轉移到寫作上來。“我真的很享受自己一個人生活。”

He took a disbelieving sip of his drink. “I want to help you,” he said. He then instructed our server to wrap up his untouched steak and insisted I take it home.

他嘬了一小口飲料，對我說的話並不相信。“我想幫你，”他說。然後他喊服務生將他沒動過的牛排打包，執意讓我帶回去。

He thought he was being kind, I knew, but that didn’t change the fact that on an otherwise perfect spring evening in Manhattan, I again faced a dilemma I’d been struggling with since turning 40: how to counter other people’s disbelief that I, single and child-free, could possibly be enjoying my own life.

我知道，他一定自認爲自己非常仁慈，但這還是不能改變一個事實，那就是在曼哈頓一個本該非常美妙的春天晚上，我再次面對一個自我40歲起就與之抗爭的困境：如何反駁那些不相信我雖然單身且沒有孩子，但依然能過得很好的人？

It’s a particularly frustrating Catch-22 for 21st-century ladies of a certain age. If I insisted that I really was having a great time, I was a lady who doth protest too much (men never seem to doth too much in this regard). Politely allow the assumption that I was in a pitiable state, satisfied by the fact that I knew better? That just perpetuated the problem.

這對21世紀某個特定年齡的女性來說是一種第22條軍規式的矛盾處境，令人尤爲沮喪。如果我堅稱自己過得很好，那我就好像太喜歡辯解了（在這方面，男人似乎從不會顯得太喜歡辯解）。如果人們認爲我處境可憐，我就要禮貌地接受，只是滿足於我內心知道事實並非如此嗎？那樣做只會讓這個問題永遠得不到解決。

I encounter this type of disbelief frequently — and nearly as often from women, although rarely expressed in such a wonderfully direct way.

我常常面臨人們的這種懷疑——而且來自女性的懷疑也一樣多，儘管她們不會像這位作家那樣直白。

A year earlier I’d mentioned to an acquaintance that I found it amusing that my married friends often expressed envy over my large new apartment — and that I live in it alone — and was gently told, “they were just being nice,” to make me feel better (I assume about the fact that I was alone). There was my best friend’s wedding, a few days after I turned 40, when, happily surrounded by my oldest, closest friends, I was assured I shouldn’t worry because “there’s still time.” (This from a guest to whom I’d just been introduced.)

一年前，我跟一個熟人提到一件趣事，已婚的朋友們常常告訴我，她們羨慕我能一個人住一套嶄新的大公寓。結果這個熟人溫和地答道：“她們是在說客套話，”意思是，她們想安慰我（我猜是因爲我獨身）。就在我40歲生日後不久，我最好的朋友結婚了。婚禮上，我開心地被親密的老朋友們簇擁着，她們安慰說，我不必擔心，因爲“還有時間”。（這句話來自一個我剛剛被介紹認識的客人。）

Once, after telling a group at a party that I’d spent a month living in Paris, I was told that it was “nice that you can still enjoy yourself.” As if the fact that I was enjoying myself — by myself! With a baguette! In Paris! — was somehow heroic.

還有一次，當我在一個派對上告訴大家我曾在巴黎生活過一個月時，大家的反應是“你還能自得其樂，真是太好了！”似乎我能在巴黎，吃着法棍，自得其樂，這有多了不起似的！

For a long time I did brush these remarks off. Yet another unexpected gift of my 40s: just how little concern I have for others’ opinions about me. But it’s wearing thin. And increasingly I find myself frustrated by the belief that I, a reasonably successful person by most measures, do not know my own mind.

在很長一段時間裏，我都對這些話置之不理。因爲我在40歲之後得到的另一份意外禮物就是不再在意別人對自己的看法。但是這種感覺正在逐漸消失。儘管我在大多數方面還算是一個成功的人，但我發現自己並不瞭解自己的內心，這令我感到愈來愈沮喪。

Not long ago, a friend described my book to a group of women in their 50s and 60s. They started laughing, she told me. She asked what was so funny. “It’s just that your friend will change her mind about kids at about age 48,” they said. “And then there will be a scramble, and a sperm bank, and a tank will arrive in her living room. She’ll change her mind, that’s so clear.”

不久前，一個朋友向一羣五六十歲的女性描述我的書。朋友告訴我，她們大笑起來。朋友問她們，究竟是什麼這麼好笑。“你的朋友一定會在48歲前後改變她對孩子的想法，”她們說。“那時她會突然想要一個孩子，她會去精子庫，然後一個箱子會送到她的客廳裏。她會改變主意的，顯而易見！”

So clear! As if I didn’t understand the consequences of my decision making. I suppose this should not surprise. As a culture, we seem to thrive on judging other women, whether it’s their appearance (see every best-dressed list, ever) or what they should be allowed to do with their bodies (cast a glance at the headlines regarding the precarious future of Roe v. Wade). We are deeply uncomfortable with the idea of women on their own, navigating their own lives, let alone liking it.

顯而易見！好像我不懂自己的決定會產生什麼後果一樣。我覺得這沒什麼好令人驚訝的。作爲一種文化，我們熱衷於對其他女人評頭論足，無論是她們的外貌（看看每次的最佳着裝名單，等等）；還是她們對自己身體的支配權（看看和“羅訴韋德案”堪憂的前景有關的文章標題）。我們對於女性能夠獨立生活並主宰自己人生的觀念深感不適，更不必說贊同它了。

But, truthfully, it was the laughter that cuts to the heart of my diminishing patience on this topic. My life is full of deeply meaningful relationships that go unrecognized when people tell me “not to worry.”

但是，坦白說，正是這些嘲笑刺痛了我的內心，我對於這一話題的耐心正在不斷消退。我的生活中充滿具有深刻意義的親密關係，人們在跟我說“別擔心”的時候卻沒有意識到它們。

I have chosen not to have children, just as I have chosen to be in the lives of those around me. I am Auntie Glynnis to many — and have the framed artwork portraits of my hair and school photo magnets to prove it. I am lucky to live upstairs from my oldest friend and her children — I get to do school pickups and nap time wake-ups. I have two nephews and a niece whose lives I’m invested in. I attend birthdays, sports events and read them stories over FaceTime.

我選擇不生孩子，正如我選擇參與到周圍人們的生活中去一樣。我是很多人的葛林妮絲阿姨——這有畫框裏的藝術畫像（畫的是我的頭髮）以及壓着學校照片的磁鐵爲證。我幸運地住在最好的老朋友以及她孩子的樓上——常常去學校幫她接孩子，幫她叫孩子們從午睡中醒來。我有兩個侄子和一個侄女，他們的成長我都參與了。我出席他們的生日、體育活動，還會通過FaceTime給他們講故事。

If close relationships make people happy, as research suggests, I’m lucky, and grateful, to be inundated with those. I’m, if not always the first, then the second emergency phone call for many friends (though when those happen simultaneously it can feel like I’m my own private 911 line).

如果正如研究表明的那樣，親密關係能夠使人幸福，那麼我感到自己很幸運，能夠擁有這些關係，並且非常感激。對於很多朋友來說，就算我不是他們的第一緊急聯繫人，也是第二緊急聯繫人（儘管當他們同時有事的時候，我感覺自己成了私人911專線）。

I’m the confidante and sometimes the confessor, the Sunday dinner guest, the person overwhelmed with holiday invitations. I’m the emergency contact on school forms, summer camp forms, hospital forms and the school “Share Day” invite list. These forms may seem negligible, but like all paperwork attached to our major relationships, they outline a life of love and gratitude.

我是很多人的知心好友，也不時聆聽他們的懺悔，我是朋友們週日宴請時的常客，也是會在假期收到大量邀請的人。在學校、夏令營以及醫院的表格中，我的名字經常出現在緊急聯絡人一欄，我還常常出現在學校“分享日”的邀請名單上。這些表格也許看起來無足輕重，但正如和我們那些主要關係有關的所有文件一樣，是它們描摹出一個充滿愛與感激的人生。

In the past I have joked that I have actually come closer to having it all than most. But that’s not true, either. There’s no such thing as “all.” I simply have as much and as little as any other woman I know and look forward to the day when women — single, married and otherwise — no longer need the words “husband” and “baby” to act as a special lemon juice squeezed over our lives in order to make them visible.

過去我常常開玩笑說，我比大多數人都更接近擁有完美人生。但那是不可能的。因爲沒有一種東西叫做“完美”。我和其他所有女人一樣，擁有的東西不多也不少。我期望有那麼一天，所有女人——無論是單身、已婚還是其他婚姻狀態——都不再需要把“丈夫”和“孩子”這樣的詞作爲讓自己的人生引人矚目的方式。

Though that too is changing. The other day my niece declared, “I want to be just like you, Auntie Glynnis! Single and no kids.” She’s 7, and has never needed to be convinced I have the life I want.

儘管如此，社會也在改變。幾天前，我的侄女說，“我想和你一樣，葛林尼斯阿姨！獨身而且不要孩子。”她才7歲，我從不用去說服她，我的生活正是我想要的。

In the meantime, I have learned to enjoy everything I have. Including leftovers.

與此同時，我也學會了如何享受我所擁有的一切。包括剩菜。

The morning after my fateful dinner, I removed the takeout container from my fridge, cracked an egg in a frying pan and enjoyed my extra-decadent breakfast. I suppose it’s fair to say I was having my steak and eating it too.

就在那頓對我的人生產生重大影響的晚餐之後一早，我把帶回來的打包盒從冰箱裏拿出來，在平底煎鍋裏打了一個雞蛋，享用我的超豪華早餐。既收下了牛排，又吃掉了牛排，公平地說，我真是把好處都佔盡了。