大人 Adults

我曾經以為「大人」是和「小孩」截然不同的生物，「大人」生來就是「大人」，沒有「小孩」的階段，所以也就沒有童年。

I used to think that “adults” were entirely different beings from “children.” That adults were born as adults—without ever having gone through a childhood, and therefore had no such thing as a “childhood” at all.

第一次聽聞「大人」口述他小時候的點滴時，我非常詫異，「原來大人也有童年嗎？」、「原來大人也有小時候的階段嗎？」內心十分震撼。

The first time I heard an adult talk about their own childhood memories, I was deeply surprised.

“Adults had childhoods too?”

“So adults also went through the stage of being children?”

The thought shook me.

因為身旁的大人不怎麼述說過往，對於青少年的認知也像一片空白，我才自然而然會以為大人是這樣的生物吧。

Perhaps because the adults around me rarely spoke about their past, and their understanding of adolescence itself seemed like a blank page, I naturally came to believe that adults were simply that kind of creature.

認知到大人也是從小孩轉變而成，我對於大人便多了一分親近感，雖然我依然不明白大人為什麼這麼難以溝通。

When I realized that every adult had once been a child, I felt an unexpected sense of closeness—though I still couldn’t understand why they were so hard to talk to.

如今我也成為大人很多年了，但週遭仍有比我年長許多的大人，所以我在他們眼中也仍被當孩子對待。儘管我知道的不見得比他們少。

Now I’ve been an adult myself for many years. Yet there are still adults much older than me, and in their eyes, I’m still treated like a child—even though what I know may not necessarily be less than what they do.

大人懂的事情，小孩不會懂？

小孩懂的事情，大人裝不懂？

Do adults know things that children cannot understand?

Or do children know things that adults pretend not to understand?

在大人的世界裡生活著，久了就會忘了小孩思維的感受，現在回想，或許那些被我誤以為沒有童年的大人並不是刻意如此，而是離童年太遠了，童年已不是隨手可觸及的記憶，需要用點心，把那些已被塵埃覆蓋的過往美好的、酸苦的回憶撢一撢，才會再想起——自己也有過年幼的歲月。

Living in the world of adults for so long, one gradually forgets how it feels to think like a child. Looking back now, perhaps those adults I once thought had no childhood weren’t like that on purpose—they had simply drifted too far from it. Childhood was no longer a memory within easy reach. It takes some effort, a bit of tenderness, to dust off those old recollections—the sweet ones, the bitter ones—and remember, once again, that they, too, were once young.