LIVING BEYOND LIMITS
Amy Purdy

If your life were a book and you were the author, how would you want your story to go? That’s the question that changed my life
forever.
如果你的人生是一本书，你是书的作者，你会怎么写你的故事？这个问题改变了我的一生。

Growing up in a hot Las Vegas desert, all I wanted was to be free. I would daydream about traveling the world, living in a place where it
snowed, and I would picture all of the stories that I would go on to tell.
从小在拉斯维加斯炎热的沙漠长大，我一直向往自由。我幻想着周游世界，幻想住在下雪的地方，想象着我要讲述的所有故事。

At the age of 19, the day after I graduated high school, I moved to a place where it snowed, and I became a massage therapist. With this
job all I needed were my hands and my massage table by my side and I could go anywhere.
19 岁那年，在我高中毕业后的第二天，我搬到了能见到雪的地方，成为了一名按摩治疗师。这份工作只需要我的双手，以及身边的按摩桌，而且我可以去任何地方。

an a 2% chance of living. It wasn’t until days later as I lay in a coma that the doctors diagnosed me with bacterial meningitis,
a vaccine-preventable blood infection.
有一天我早早下了班，以为自己得了流感。不到 24 小时，我就进了医院，靠设备维持着生命，只有不到 2%的生存几率。几天后，在我陷入昏迷之际，医生才诊断出我得了细菌性脑膜炎，一种疫苗可预防的血液感染。

Over the course of two and a half months, I lost my spleen, my kidneys, the hearing in my left ear and both of my legs below the
knee. When my parents wheeled me out of the hospital, I felt like I had been pieced back together like a patchwork doll. I thought the
worst was over until weeks later when I saw my new legs for the first time.
在为期两个半月的治疗中，我切除了脾和肾，左耳失聪，双腿膝盖以下截肢。当父母把我推出医院时，我感觉自己像是一个被重新拼凑起来的拼布娃娃。我以为最惨的经历已经过去了，直到几周后我第一次见到自己的新腿。

The calves were bulky blocks of metal with pipes bolted together for the ankles and a yellow rubber foot with the raised rubber line from the toe to the ankle to look like a vein. I didn’t know what to expect but I wasn’t expecting that. With my mum by my side and tears streaming down our faces, I strapped on these chunky legs and I stood up.
小腿是笨重的金属块，脚踝用管子和螺栓固定，外加黄色的橡胶脚，突起的橡胶线从脚趾延伸到脚踝，为了看起来像血管。我不知道我想要的结果是什么，但绝不会是这个。妈妈站在我旁边，我们俩泪水肆意，我绑上这两条粗壮的腿，然后站了起来。

They were so painful and so confining that all I could think was how am* I ever going to travel the world in these things? How was I ever
going to live the life full of adventure and stories as I always wanted? And how was I going to snowboard again?
戴着它们十分痛苦，行动也很局限，我脑子里只有一个想法：戴着这些破玩意我怎么能周游世界？我要怎么才能过上我一直想要的充满冒险和故事的生活？我怎么再滑单板？（*注：作者口误，am 应为 was）

That day, I went home, I crawled into bed and this is what my life looked like for the next few months. Me passed out, escaping from
reality with my legs resting by my side. I was absolutely, physically and emotionally broken.
那天我回到家，爬上床，这就是我接下来几个月的生活状态。我萎靡不振，逃离现实，而我的腿就放在旁边。我在生理上和心理上完全崩溃了。

But I knew that in order to move forward, I had to let go of the old Amy and learn to embrace the new Amy. And that is when it dawned
on me that I didn’t have to be 5,5 ft. anymore. I could be as tall as I wanted, or as short as I wanted depending on who I was dating
但是我知道想要向前走，我必须丢掉曾经的艾米，学着接受新的艾米。也就在那时我突然想到，我再也不必只有 5.5 英尺（165 厘米）高了。我可以想多高就多高，或者想多矮就多矮，这得看我和谁约会。

And if I snowboarded again, my feet aren’t* going to get cold. And best of all, I thought I can* make my feet the size of all the shoes that
are* on the sales rack and I did! So there were benefits here.
如果我再玩单板，脚也不会冷了。我觉得最棒的是，我可以通过调整脚的大小穿上货架上任何尺码的鞋子。我真那么干了！所以好处还是有的。

It was this moment that I asked myself that life-defining question: If my life were a book and I were the author, how would I want the
story to go? And I began to daydream.
那一刻我问了自己那个决定人生走向的问题：如果人生是一本书，而我是作者，我会怎么写这个故事？我开始幻想。

I daydreamed like I did as a little girl and I imagined myself walking gracefully, helping other people through my journey and
snowboarding again. And I didn’t just see myself carving down a mountain of powder, I could actually feel it.
像我小时候那样幻想，我想象自己优雅地前行，在路途中帮助别人，再次开始滑单板。我并不只是想象自己从雪山上滑下来，我可以真切感受到。

I could feel the wind against my face and the beat of my racing heart as if it were happening in that very moment. And that is when a new
chapter in my life began.
我可以感受到扑面而来的风，感受到快速跳动的心脏，如同那一刻正在真实发生。那就是我人生新篇章开启的时刻。
（注：作者口误，aren’t 应为 weren’t；can 应为 could；are 应为 were）