我的老友记：从老朋友身上学到的

It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“与老友傻乐相伴，莫大幸哉！”——拉尔夫·瓦尔多·爱默生

When you’re a child, making friends does not require too much effort. Still, as much as I love children, I know that they can be very mean creatures. I know it first-hand, and as the sister to an adolescent girl, I am reminded of it often.

童年时，交朋友无需刻意便能做到。虽然很喜欢小孩，但我还是觉得他们有时候很自私。我就有个豆蔻年华的妹妹，因此深有体会。

But with similar schedules and mostly innocent oblivion, having the opportunity to make friends is presented to us all the way through our formative years. And somewhere along the way, if we’re lucky we can make really good friends, who when we reach adulthood, start to feel like old friends.

可是，成长时期的相似经历和单纯懵懂却又为我们提供了诸多交友机会，而且幸运的话，或许我们还能遇到知己，一起走向成年，形若老友。

There are many friends that will come into your life – some you will passively lose touch with, some will become more like acquaintances; and yet still, some you will actively choose to no longer be friends with. It’s a reality that we begin to realize in our collegiate years and it continues beyond those years. But your old friends seem to stick around, and no matter how near or far they are, they continue to be a part of your life.

人一生中会遇到各种各样的朋友——有些渐渐就失去了联系，有些会变得越来越亲密，而有些则被我们主动从朋友名单中删除。这一事实不仅存在于学生时代，更将延续到以后的岁月。但是，不论离得近还是远，老朋友似乎总能在你身边，已然成为你生活中不可或缺的部分。

From old friends we learn how much we grow. They’re the people who’ve usually witnessed everything from our major accomplishments to our innocuous mistakes, to the moments we’re least proud of. They told us to do better and sometimes they forced us to do better. And we know that if we’re happy with who we’ve become, they played a role in that process. From old friends we recognize that life and people and things aren’t meant to stay the same.

我们从老朋友身上看到自己的成长。老朋友对我们无所不知：从我们取得的重大成就到我们所犯的细小错误，乃至我们甚感窘尬的糗事。老朋友鼓励、甚至逼着我们做得更好；如果我们当真成长得不错的话，那也是因为老朋友一直在敦促我们。我们从老朋友身上看到，生活以及人和事不可能一直保持不变。

There is a freedom that comes with old friends that newer friendships can sometimes fail to bring. There are no impressions to be made with people who know you well. There are few filters to send your thoughts through as you engage in conversation. There is a great comfort that comes with knowing that a friend has loved you for a long time; and that this person who doesn’t have to, continues to love you anyway.

老朋友带来的自在感绝不是新朋友能比的。老朋友对你知根知底，因此你不必刻意留下好印象。和老朋友谈话，总能时不时地心有灵犀一点通。只要想想有这么一个人，一直以来甚或以后都无条件爱着你，是多么令人欣慰！

With old friends there is often great laughter about the shared history of your pasts. And in your youth, pasts are often filled with many playful instants but also careless choices. There is a solemn recollection of the difficult periods that you have been through. There is an understanding of how you came to be who you came to be.

和老朋友回忆你们过去的往事总能逗起欢声笑语。年轻时有着太多有趣的瞬间，也少不了莽撞的选择。那些你们共同经历的艰难时期，充满了凝重嘘唏的记忆。你清楚自己是怎样一步一步走到现在的。

With old friends, you realize true friendships are difficult to create, to cultivate, and to hold onto. And the profound gratitude that you have for having a friend long enough to call them an “old friend,” feels wonderful.

因为老朋友，你懂得真正的友情是多么难能可贵、多么不易呵护维持。能有这样弥久珍贵的“老朋友”，你心存感激、备感美好。

Old friends hold a mirror in front of us and allow us to see how far we’ve come, and how far we still have to go to be the person we can be. Old friends show us a reflection of all the parts that we still need to change, and some of the parts we’ll hopefully never change. Old friends remind us that the past was both good and bad, that the future is something to look forward to, while keeping us grounded in the present. And no matter the passage of time, when we’re with our old friends, we have a feeling of home – a place where we can be stupid with people who love us.

老朋友犹如镜子，提醒我们走过的路以及为了实现目标而要征服的路程；老朋友指正我们所有亟待改变的地方，哪怕有些我们或许永远都改变不了；老朋友使我们明白过去有苦有乐，未来值得期盼，而现在才最该脚踏实地去珍惜。不论时光如何流逝，只要老朋友在身边，我们都会有家的感觉——在那里，我们可以和至亲至爱的人一起发傻一起欢乐。