编者按：玛丽娜·基亘(Marina Keegan)是耶鲁大学的一名大学生。她是耶鲁大学校报《耶鲁每日新闻》的主要撰稿人，曾在《纽约时报》和《纽约客》发表过数篇文章，并在毕业之际加入《纽约客》，成为一名主编助理。正如她在本文中所写的那样，她正带着爱和谦卑的心，准备为这个世界带来一点改变。可造化弄人，一场车祸带走了她最美的年华，也带走了她对明天的所有期望。斯人已逝，唯有那些细腻、睿智、触人心弦的文字留了下来，温暖和激励着读者。本文是她公开发表的最后一篇文章。刊登此文，既是为了缅怀这位早逝的英才，也是为了勉励现在的你我，愿活在这个孤单星球上的所有人都不孤独。
我们的语言中没有孤独的反义词，但如果有，我想说那就是我的一生所求，那是我在耶鲁大学时让我满怀感激的所得，也是我担心明天一觉醒来离开这里时所失去的。
它像爱但又不是爱，像交际又不是交际。它就是一种感觉，感觉许许多多的人在同一个圈子里，在你所在的团队里。付过账之后，你还坐在餐桌边不想走。凌晨4点了，还没有人想去睡觉。难忘那夜的吉他声。还有那个无法记起的夜晚。一次次，我们做过，去过，看过，笑过，也感受过。还有我们的帽子！(译注：这里的hat可能指她们毕业戴的学士帽，也可能是某些活动、某个节日戴的帽子。)
耶鲁有很多小圈子可供我们参加：无伴奏合唱团、体育队、宗教社团、协会，还有俱乐部。即使在最孤独的夜晚，当我们跌跌撞撞地回到家里，坐到电脑旁，无人陪伴、又累又乏、毫无睡意时，这些小团队也总能让我们感受关爱，感到安全，觉得自己有所归属。可明年这一切我们将不再拥有。我们将不再和所有朋友一起住在同一栋大楼。也不再有那么多群发信息了。
这令我惊慌！这比找不到称心的工作、合适的城市或者心仪的配偶更令我担心——我害怕失去我们所在的这个关系网。害怕失去这种说不清、道不明、无法确切描绘的孤独的对立面。害怕失去我此刻正在感受的感受。
但我要申明一点：我们人生中最美好的年华并没有过去。最美年华已成为我们生活的一部分，在我们今后成长的过程中还会频频出现——不管我们是打算搬到纽约居住还是搬出纽约，也不管我们是否希望自己住在纽约。我可以计划自己在30岁时聚会狂欢，也可以计划年老时尽情玩乐。什么叫“最美年华”？它就是我们常挂在嘴边的话：“我应该怎样怎样”“如果我怎样怎样”“但愿我怎样怎样”。
当然，总有一些事情我们没做但希望自己做过：该读的书，还有宿舍对面的那个该表白的男生。我们是自己最苛刻的批评家，很容易让自己感到失望。总是睡得很晚。总是拖拖拉拉。做事偷工减料。我不止一次地回顾中学时的自己，心想：那时我是怎样做的？那时我怎么那么用功？我们个人的不安全感总是伴随着我们，以后还会始终伴随着我们。
但问题是，我们都是这样过来的。没有谁想什么时候醒来就什么时候醒来。没有谁读完所有的书(也许那些获奖的疯子除外……)。我们给自己定的标准高得难以置信，对于未来的自己，我们有着完美的幻想，但也许我们永远都无法做到。但我觉得做不到也没什么关系。
我们如此年轻，如此年轻。我们只有22岁。我们还有那么多的时间。有时我会体会到一种感伤情绪，在我们聚会后独自躺下时，或者在我们厌倦了学习收拾课本准备出去玩时，这种感伤情绪会悄然钻进我们的集体意识中——那就是不知怎么总觉得自己起步太晚了。觉得不知怎么回事别人都走到自己前面去了。他们更有成就、更专业。他们已走上正路，正在以某种方式拯救世界，或者发明创造，或者改善人生。而自己现在才开始已经太晚了。现在，我们只能安于现状，安于毕业。
初来耶鲁时，我们都怀抱一种“无所不能”的感觉。这是一种巨大但又无法确切描述的潜能。而现在，我们很容易就会觉得这种潜能已不复存在。过去我们从来不需要选择，可现在我们突然要作出选择。我们中的有些人已经有了方向。有些人已经确切知道自己需要什么，而且正努力前进以达到目标。有人将会读医学院，有人将会在优秀的非政府组织工作，有人将会做科研工作。对于你们，我要说声祝贺。
然而，对于我们大多数人来说，我们都有些迷失在人文科学的茫茫大海上了。我们不知道自己走的是哪条路，也不知道当初选这条路对不对。我要是当初学生物专业该多好……我要是在大一时学新闻学该多好……我要是当初想到申请这个或者那个该多好……
我们必须铭记一点：我们仍然无所不能。我们可以改变主意。我们可以重新开始。去继续深造，或者第一次尝试写作。认为现在一切都太晚了的想法是滑稽可笑的。我们大学才即将毕业，我们还非常年轻。我们不能也绝对不要失去这种无所不能的感觉，因为最终它将是我们所拥有的一切。
大一时，在冬天一个星期五的深夜，我接到朋友们打来的一个电话，要我和他们在EST见，这让我困惑不解。(译注：EST是美国教育考试服务中心[EducationalTesting Service]的缩写，往往代指该中心举行的各种考试，这里作者是说自己初进大学时不知道，误以为是学校里的一个什么地方。糊里糊涂地，我开始艰难地向SSS走去，那大概是校园里最远的地方了。最雷人的是，我到了门口才开始质疑：朋友们到底是怎么又为什么会在耶鲁的行政大楼里搞聚会呢？当然，他们根本就不在那里。但当时天很冷，我的证件竟然可以通行，于是我就进入了SSS大楼，拿出了电话。周围一片寂静，年代久远的木头发出吱吱的声音，透过彩色玻璃，窗外的白雪依稀可见。我坐了下来，抬起头来，巡视着我身在其中的这个巨大房间。成千上万的人曾在我之前在这里坐过。独自一人，在深夜，在纽黑文市的一场暴雪之中，我坐在这里，竟感到出奇地安全，这简直令人难以置信。
我们的语言中没有孤独的反义词，但如果有，我想说那就是我在耶鲁大学所感受到的，就是此时此刻我所感受到的。就在这里，和你们所有人在一起。带着爱，带着美好的印象，带着谦卑的心，还有些许的紧张和担心。这种感觉我们不要失去。
2012，我们共同在一起。让我们为这个世界带来一些改变。
可点击下方音频收听原文
We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I could say that’s what I want in life. What I’m grateful and thankful to have found at Yale, and what I’m scared of losing when we wake up tomorrow and leave this place.
It’s not quite love and it’s not quite community; it’s just this feeling that there are people, an abundance of people, who are in this together. Who are on your team. When the check is paid and you stay at the table. When it’s four a.m. and no one goes to bed. That night with the guitar. That night we can’t remember. That time we did, we went,we saw, we laughed, we felt. The hats.
Yale is full of tiny circles we pull around1) ourselves. A cappella2) groups, sports teams, houses3), societies,clubs. These tiny groups that make us feel loved and safe and part of something even on our loneliest nights when we stumble home to our computers—partner-less, tired, awake. We won’t have those next year. We won’t live on the same block as all our friends. We won’t have a bunch of group-texts.
This scares me. More than finding the right job or city or spouse—I’m scared of losing this web we’re in. This elusive,indefinable, opposite of loneliness. This feeling I feel right now.
But let us get one thing straight4): the best years of our lives are not behind us. They’re part of us and they are set for repetition as we grow up and move to New York and away from New York and wish we did or didn’t live in New York. I plan on having parties when I’m 30. I plan on having fun when I’m old. Any notion of THE BEST years comes from clichéd “should haves ...” “if I’d ...” “wish I’d ...”
Of course, there are things we wished we did: our readings, that boy across the hall5). We’re our own hardest critics and it’s easy to let ourselves down. Sleeping too late. Procrastinating.Cutting corners6). More than once I’ve looked back on my High School self and thought: How did I do that? How did I work so hard? Our private insecurities follow us and will always follow us.
But the thing is, we’re all like that. Nobody wakes up when they want to. Nobody did all of their reading (exceptmaybe the crazy people who win the prizes …). We have these impossibly high standards and we’ll probably never live up to our perfect fantasies of our future selves. But I feel like that’s okay.
We’re so young. We’re so young. We’retwenty-two years old. We have so much time. There’s this sentiment I sometimes sense, creeping in our collective conscious as we lay alone after a party, orpack up our books when we give in and go out—that it is somehow too late. That others are somehow ahead. More accomplished, more specialized. More on the pathto somehow saving the world, somehow creating or inventing or improving. That it’s too late now to BEGIN a beginning and we must settle for7) continuance,for commencement.
When we came to Yale, there was this sense of possibility. This immense and indefinable potential energy—and it’s easy to feel like that’s slipped away. We never had to choose and suddenly we’ve hadto. Some of us have focused ourselves. Some of us know exactly what we want and are on the path to get it; already going to med school, working at the perfect NGO, doing research. To you I say both congratulations.
For most of us, however, we’re somewhat lost in this sea of liberal arts. Not quite sure what road we’re on and whether we should have taken it. If only I had majored in biology … if only I’d gotten involved in journalism as a freshman … if only I’d thought to apply for this or for that …
What we have to remember is that we can still do anything. We can change our minds. We can start over. Get a post-bac8) or try writing for the first time. The notion that it’s too late to do anythingis comical. It’s hilarious9). We’re graduating college. We’re so young. We can’t, we MUST not lose this sense of possibility because in the end, it’s allwe have.
In the heart of a winter Friday night my freshman year, I was dazed and confused when I got a call from my friends to meet them at EST EST EST. Dazedly and confusedly, I began trudging10) toSSS11), probably the point on campus farthest away. Remarkably, it wasn’t untilI arrived at the door that I questioned how and why exactly my friends were partying in Yale’s administrative building. Of course, they weren’t. But it was cold and my ID somehow worked so I went inside SSS to pull out my phone. It was quiet, the old wood creaking and the snow barely visible outside the stained glass. And I sat down. And I looked up. At this giant room I was in. At this place where thousands of people had sat before me. And alone, at night, in the middle of a New Haven storm, I felt so remarkably, unbelievably safe.
We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I’d say that’s how I feel at Yale. How I feel right now. Here. With all of you. In love, impressed, humbled, scared. And we don’thave to lose that.
We’re in this together, 2012. Let’s make something happen to this world.
>>注释：
pullaround：把……拖来拖去
acappella：无伴奏合唱，指仅用人声演唱而不用乐器伴奏的多声部音乐表演方式。无伴奏合唱源于欧洲中世纪天主教堂的唱诗班(圣乐团)，自文艺复兴后期起才渐渐成为世俗音乐演唱形式，至今仍在欧美音乐生活中占有重要的位置。
house[ha?s] n. 宗教团体，宗教场所，教堂
getstraight：彻底了解
hall[h??l] n. (学校、学院或大学里的)教学(或科研)大楼；学生宿舍
cutcorners：(不按常规而)以简便方法做事
settlefor：讲究，只好如此
post-bac：学士后(post-baccalaureate)，指某些学院或大学为一些持有本科学历者提供的有别于传统本科教育的教育方式，通常被称作“继续教育”“双学位”或“资格认证”等。
hilarious[h??le?ri?s] adj. 非常滑稽的
trudge[英] [tr?d?] vt. 拖着沉重的脚步走，步履维艰地走
SSS：谢菲尔德-斯德灵-斯川斯科那大厅(Sheffield-Sterling-StrathconaHall)，耶鲁大学的行政大楼
联系客服
