每日一词一文

There is a drawer somewhere in every house that holds letters never sent. Apologies written and folded, thanks composed but never stamped, questions that would have changed everything had they been asked. We keep them out of habit, telling ourselves that someday we will finish what we began. The sealed envelope hardens into a monument of hesitation, and most of us never dare to reopen it.

每座房子的某个抽屉里，都收着一些从未寄出的信。写好后叠起的道歉，写好却未贴邮票的感谢，还有那些一旦问出口就可能改变一切、却始终没有问的问题。我们出于习惯留着它们，告诉自己总有一天会完成当初开始的事。封好的信封渐渐硬化成一座犹豫的纪念碑，而我们大多数人始终不敢再把它打开。

The unsent letter is a strange genre. It speaks truer than the letters we actually mail, because it was written for no audience but the writer. In its sentences we find the courage that daily life removes from us. Regret does its clearest thinking in the second person, addressing the one who will never read the words. It is a monologue without a listener and without fear.

未寄出的信是一种奇怪的体裁。它比真正寄出的信说得更真，因为它从不写给别的读者，只写给写信人自己。在它的句子里，我们找得到日常生活从我们身上拿走的那种勇气。遗憾最清醒的思考总是用第二人称进行，对着那个永远不会读到这些话的人。这是一场没有听众的独白，因此也没有恐惧。

Some letters remain unsent because the right moment never arrives. Time is supposed to heal such things, but healing is not the same as resolution. We imagine that forgiveness must wait for the perfect sentence, the fair weather, the courage that never comes. Meanwhile the drawer fills, and the distance between two people grows the way a river grows wider the further it travels from its source.

有些信一直没有寄出，是因为对的时候始终没有到来。时间理应治愈这些事，但治愈并不等于了结。我们想象原谅必须等一个完美的句子、一个晴朗的日子、一份迟迟不来的勇气。与此同时抽屉越塞越满，两个人之间的距离不断拉大，就像河越流离源头越远，河面就越宽。

Perhaps the bravest act is not writing the letter but sending it. To mail a letter is to admit that we were wrong, or that we cared, or that a year has passed and we are still thinking of someone. It is to place our dignity in a mailbox and walk away, hoping it lands gently. The reply, if it comes, is secondary.

也许最勇敢的事不是写信，而是把它寄出去。寄出一封信，等于承认我们错了，或承认我们在乎，或承认一年已经过去而我们仍想着某个人。那是把自己的尊严放进邮筒然后走开，希望它轻轻落到对岸。回信若来，也只是次要的。

At the end of our lives, the letters we sent will be forgotten; the ones we never wrote will keep asking their questions. So write the difficult letter. Buy the stamp. Walk to the corner where the blue box waits like an honest judge. Whatever the answer, you will have done something rare: you will have chosen closure over comfort, and begun again.

到生命尽头，我们寄出的信都会被遗忘；而那些从未写出的信，会一直追问。所以去写那封难写的信吧。买一张邮票。走到街角，那里蓝色的邮筒像一位诚实的法官等着你。无论答案如何，你都做成了一件稀罕的事：你选择了了结，而不是安逸，然后重新开始。