隨著年齡增長，我們有了各種身份，需要應對的關系也越來越多：與父母、與同學、與朋友、與同事、與伴侶、與子女……因為同他人相處的時間日益增多，我們獨處的時間越來越少，甚至漸漸喪失了獨處的能力。

如果給你一個獨處的機會，你會感到孤單、寂寞、不知所措嗎?你知道該如何與自己相處嗎?

今天的文章“Living on My Own, and Taking Control of My Life” (《掌控人生，從一個人住開始》)，原文作者為Sian Norris，譯者楊瑞，原文和譯文刊登于《英語》雜志。

The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.

—Michel de Montaigne

世界上最偉大的事，是一個人懂得如何做自己的主人。

—米歇爾·德·蒙田

只有身處獨屬自己的空間，完全不必理會他人，不受外界打擾，我們才有機會深入思考，傾聽內心的聲音，與自己對話，想清楚人生究竟要如何度過。

Those first few days of being by myself in my flat—decorated with my choice of colours, with my books on the shelves and my pictures, hung by me, on my walls—were disconcerting (使人不安的). I walked around the few rooms, wondering what to do now. With no one to move around, no one to talk to, no one to ask me how my day had been, I didn’t know where to put myself. The life I had once assumed—the one with a partner and a house and a family—had vanished. Here I was, facing a new future, living by myself.

公寓裝修用的是我喜歡的色彩，書架上擺的是我的書，墻上掛著的是我的照片，而且是我自己掛上去的。但最初一個人在公寓的那幾天，我感覺焦躁不安。我在為數不多的幾個房間里徘徊，不知道要做些什么。沒有人在身邊走動，沒有人和我說話，沒有人問我今天過得怎么樣，我不知該如何安放自己。我曾經假設的生活——有一個伴兒、一所房子、一個家的生活——化為了泡影。走到了這一步，我要面對的是嶄新的未來，一個人的生活。

That trepidation (驚恐), that anxiety, soon turned into a feeling of liberation.

這種驚惶和焦慮很快就轉變為自由之感。

Living alone gave me a sense of freedom I hadn’t known I’d craved. In my own flat, with my own space, I started to write with a renewed energy. I’d spent years writing the first draft of a novel—years filled with interruptions and squeezed space. Within months, I had finished a book.

一個人生活給我帶來了一種自由的感覺，這種自由感是我一直渴求卻不自知的。我在屬于自己的公寓里，有了自己的空間，于是重新打起精神，開始寫作。我曾花費幾年的時間才完成一部小說的初稿——那幾年里我經常被打斷，個人空間遭到擠壓。現在，幾個月內我就寫成了一本書。

By taking control of my physical space, I opened up a new emotional space for myself. I was working harder and better than I’d ever worked before. My self-image changed with the move, too. I started calling myself a writer. In Woolfspeak, I had found my “room of one’s own (見Tip)” where I could carve out a space for my creative self.

我通過控制物理空間為自己開辟了新的情感空間。我比以往工作得更努力，工作得更好。自我形象也隨著此次搬家改變了，我開始稱自己為作家。用伍爾芙的話說，我發現了“自己的房間”，在這個房間里我可以為富有創作力的自己開辟一片天地。

Tip:

此處指英國著名作家弗吉尼亞·伍爾芙(Virginia Woolf, 1882~1941)的一句話：“A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” 伍爾芙是意識流文學代表人物，被譽為20世紀現代主義與女性主義的先鋒，代表作包括小說《達洛維夫人》(Mrs. Dalloway)、《到燈塔去》(To the Lighthouse)及隨筆《一間自己的房間》(A Room of One’s Own)等。