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.

几乎可以肯定的是，参加这场派对的其他人带着和我不同的印象离开。许多客人都会羡慕这位生了一个健康新生儿的美丽女子，她成功的艺术事业、嫁给了一个好男人、她漂亮的公寓、她的派对礼服。只要有一丁点机会，派对上有人会很愿意和她易地而处。这名女子自己回顾这一夜——倘若她曾想起来的话——的时候，或许看作是她整个满意的母亲、婚姻、事业生涯当中，一个劳累却完全值得的夜晚。然而对于我自己，我只能说，我在整场派对上因恐慌而颤抖，心想：倘若你看不出这就是你的将来，小莉，那么你真是头脑有问题。别让它发生。

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.

但我是否有责任成立一个家？天啊——责任。这字眼在我身上下功夫，直到我对它下功夫，仔细研究它，把它拆解成“回应”（respond）的“能力”（ability），这两个真正定义它的字。而我终须回应的事实是，我的每个细胞都叫我摆脱婚姻。我心中某个预警系统正在预报，假使我持续握紧拳头穿越这场风暴，最后我会罹患癌症。假使我不顾一切把孩子带到世界上，只因为我对揭发自己某些不切实际的真相感到麻烦或耻辱而不愿想办法处理的话——这将是一种严重的不负责任之举。

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."

但是最后，是我的朋友雪柔对我说的一席话指引了我。就在那一晚的派对上，就在她发现我躲在我们的朋友那层顶楼画室的浴室里吓得发抖，朝脸上泼水的时候。雪柔当时不清楚我的婚姻状况，没有任何人清楚。那天晚上我并未告诉她，我只说：“我不知如何是好。”我记得她握着我的肩，笑容平和地看着我的眼睛，只说：“说实话，说实话，说实话。”

So that's what I tried to do.

于是我试着去做。

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，摆脱婚姻很不好过，不止因为法律与财务纠葛，或生活方式的剧变，（如同我朋友黛博拉的英明指点：“从未有人因为平分家具而丧命。”）而是情感的退缩，走出传统的生活方式，失去原本拥有的所有安慰，而使你丧命。与配偶成立一个家庭，是一个人在美国 （或任何）社会找到延续和意义的最基本方式之一。每回去母亲在明尼苏达的娘家聚会，我便重新发现此一事实，看见每个人都在自己的岗位上坚守多年。首先你是个孩子，而后成为青少年，而后结婚，而后生子，然后退休，然后为人祖父母——你在每一阶段都清楚自己的身份，清楚自己的职责，清楚家庭聚会时坐在哪个地方。你和其他的孩子、青少年、父母或退休人士坐在一起。直到最后，你和一群九十岁老者坐在树阴下，心满意足地照看你的子孙后代。你是什么人？没问题——你是创造“这一切”的人。这种认知带来的满足感是即时性的，而且举世公认。有多少人说过，他们的孩子是自己生命中最大的成就与安慰？这是在危机时期或犹豫时刻得以仰赖的东西——我这辈子倘若什么也没做，至少把孩子抚养得很好。