Before we begin
前言Preface
你有没有过这种体验？
跟老朋友聊天，聊到以前的事，两个人记得的版本完全不一样。
你说“那天明明下雨了”，他说“放屁，大太阳”。
Have you ever had this happen? You're with an old friend, talking about something from years back, and the two of you remember it completely differently. You say, "It was raining that day, I'm sure of it." They say, "No way, it was blazing sun."
大脑会篡改记忆。
它会美化一些事、淡忘一些事、也会把不愉快的悄悄修掉。
你以为你想起来的，是真的发生过的那件事。
但其实你想起来的，也许是被大脑“整理过的版本”。
Your brain edits your memories. It pretties some things up, lets others fade, and quietly deletes the parts that hurt. You think what you remember is what really happened. But what you remember might just be your brain's tidied-up version.
你闻到那个味道，回到的不是“被整理过的版本”。
你回到的是那个瞬间本身——
Catch the right scent and you don't go back to the edited version. You go back to the moment itself.
当时的光线，
当时空气里的湿度，
当时你心里那种说不上来的感觉。
The light that day. The damp in the air. That feeling in your chest you could never quite name.
可能是某个笨拙的时刻，走错的路、搞砸的事，
可能是某次心动，和控制不住的泪水，
也可能是某一片刻塌了的天。
Maybe it was a clumsy moment, a wrong turn, something you messed up. Maybe it was a crush, and tears you couldn't hold back. Maybe it was the day the whole sky fell in.
现在回想起来，是否这些更容易令你会心一笑。
不是那些事本身可爱，是“那时候的自己”可爱。
Looking back now, those are often the ones that make you smile. It isn't that the things themselves were sweet. It's that the person you were back then was.
“原来当时是这样，不然我怎么变成今天的我。”"So that's how it was. No wonder I became who I am."
气味替你留住的，就是那个“还好当时是这样”的证据。
What a scent keeps for you is the proof that, thank goodness, it happened the way it did.
你曾经是这样的一个人，而你现在已经是另一个人了。
那个完美或不完美的过去，是你今天站在这里的全部理由。
You used to be one person. You're someone else now. That past, perfect or not, is the whole reason you're standing here today.
