“It’s all pretty much how I pictured it,” I finally say. “The parties, the layovers(stopover) in international airports, the cocktails
on the jet(plane), and the beaches and the boats and the vineyards. And it all looks how it should, but it feels different than I imagined it. Honestly, I think it feels different than it used to. I used to bounce off the walls
for weeks before a trip, you know? And when I got to the airport, I’d feel like—like my blood was humming(make a low, steady continuous sound like that of a bee). Like the air was just vibrating with possibility around me. I don’t know. I’m not sure what’s changed. Maybe I have.”
She brushes a dark curl behind her ear
and shrugs. “You wanted it, Poppy. You didn’t have it, and you wanted it. You were hungry.”
Instantly, I know she’s right. She’s seen right through the word vomit
to the center of things. “Isn’t that ridiculous?” I groan-laugh. “My life turned out how I hoped it would, and now I just miss wanting something.”
Shaking with the weight of it. Humming with the potential. Staring at the ceiling of my crappy, pre-R+R fifth-floor walk-up, after a double shift serving drinks at the Garden, and daydreaming about the future. The places I’d go, the people I’d meet—who I’d become. What is there left to want when you’ve got your dream apartment, your dream boss, and your dream job (which negates any anxiety over your dream apartment’s obscenely high rent, because you spend most of your time eating at Michelin-starred restaurants on the company’s dime anyway)?
Rachel drains(cause the water or other liquid in (something) to run out, leaving it empty, dry, or drier.) her glass and globs some Brie onto a cracker
, nodding knowingly. “Millennial ennui.”
“Is that a thing?” I ask.
“Not yet, but if you repeat it three times, there’ll be a Slate think piece on it by tonight.”
I throw a handful of salt over my shoulder as if to ward off such evil, and Rachel snorts
as she pours us each a fresh glass.
“I thought the whole thing about millennials(They are a group of individuals who attained adulthood at the turn of the 21st century.) was that we don’t get what we want. The houses, the jobs, the financial freedom. We just go to school forever, then bartend(work serving drinks at a bar) ’til we die.”
“Yeah,” she says, “but you dropped out of college and went after what you want. So here we are.”
“I don’t want to have millennial ennui,” I say. “It makes me feel like an asshole(a stupid and mean person) to not just be content (satisfy) with my amazing life.”
Rachel snorts again. “Contentment is a lie invented by capitalism(an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.),” Art School Rachel says, but maybe she has a point. Usually, she does. “Think about it. All those pictures I post? They’re selling something. A lifestyle. People look at those pictures and think, ‘If only I had those Sonia Rykiel heels, that gorgeous apartment with the French oak herringbone floors,
then I’d be happy. I’d swan(walk around) about, watering my houseplants and lighting my endless supply of Jo Malone candles, and I’d feel my life in perfect harmony. I’d finally love my home. I’d relish my days on this planet.’”
“You sell it well, Rach,” I say. “You seem pretty happy.”
“Damn right I am,” she says. “But I’m not content, and you know why?” She plucks(pick up) her phone off the table, flips to a specific picture she has in mind, and holds it up. A shot of her reclined on her velvet sofa, laden in bulldogs with matching scars from their matching lifesaving snout surgeries. She’s dressed in SpongeBob SquarePants pajamas
and isn’t wearing a lick of makeup.
“Because every day there are back-alley puppy mills breeding more of these little guys! Getting the same poor dogs pregnant over and over again, producing litter upon litter of puppies with genetic mutations that make life hard and painful. Not to mention all the pit bulls doubled up in kennels, rotting(die) in puppy prison!”
“Are you saying I should get a dog?” I say. “Because the whole travel-journalist thing kind of precludes(make impossible) pet ownership.” Truthfully, even if it didn’t, I’m not sure I could handle a pet. I love dogs, but I also grew up in a house teeming with them. With pets come fur and barking and chaos(complete disorder and confusion.). For a fairly chaotic person, that’s a slippery slope.
If I went to a shelter to pick up a foster dog, there’s no guarantee I wouldn’t come home having adopted six of them and a wild coyote.
“I’m saying,” Rachel replies, “that purpose matters more than contentment. You had a ton of career goals, which gave you purpose. One by one, you met them. Et voilà: no purpose.”
“So I need new goals.”
She nods emphatically(in a forceful way.). “I read this article about it. Apparently the completion(finish) of long-term goals often leads to depression. It’s the journey, not the destination, babe, and whatever the fuck else those throw pillows say.”
Her face softens again, becomes the ethereal thing of her most-liked photographs. “You know, my therapist(a person trained in the use of psychological methods for helping patients overcome psychological problems.) says—”
“Your mom,” I say.
“She was being a therapist when she said this,” Rachel argues, by which I know she means, Sandra Krohn was being decidedly Dr. Sandra Krohn, in the same way that Rachel is sometimes decidedly Art School Rachel, not that Rachel was actually in a therapy session. Beg as Rachel might, her mother refuses to treat Rachel as a patient. Rachel, however, refuses to see anyone else, and so they remain at an impasse(a situation in which no progress is possible, especially because of disagreement).
“Anyway,” Rachel continues, “she told me that sometimes, when you lose your happiness, it’s best to look for it the same way you’d look for anything else.”
“By groaning and hurling couch cushions around?” I guess.
“By retracing(following) your steps,” Rachel says. “So, Poppy, all you have to do is think back and ask yourself, when was the last time you were truly happy?”
The problem is, I don’t have to think back. Not at all.
I know right away when I was last truly happy.
Two years ago, in Croatia, with Alex Nilsen.
But there’s no finding my way back to that, because we haven’t spoken since.
“Just think about it, will you?” Rachel says. “Dr. Krohn is always right.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I’ll think about it.”
《People We Meet on Vacation》
by Emily Henry 从朋友到恋人
只是搬运工加个人笔记。