Oh no, you’re thinking–another 9/11 post. And that is exactly the rub. Today is a prickly today. It is a day that can’t win.
This year, it falls on Wednesday. Rob and I did the dance of who gets up with what kids when and working out and the making of breakfasts and lunches and the loading up of all the people into all the cars and the driving off to work/school/church. Only on my way out the door, hurrying along the little feet in front of me and precariously balancing my coffee, did I see a friend’s post that reminded me: today is September 11. It made me catch my breath, sneaking up on me like that, just as I caught my breath when my best friend called me twelve years ago, when I was simply ironing a pair of shorts to ask: Are you watching this?
I don’t know what exactly I want from September 11, but it is never enough. Should we all pause? Mourn? Memorialize? I don’t know what we should do, but it always feels wrong and I get all prickly about it. At the songs playing on the radio like it is any other day. At the people posting on Twitter like it is any other day. At those who make too much of it, who make me feel trite and forced.
I drive my children to church and feel sad and irritated and get weepy and cynical all at the same time. I hate that there are any events on this day, from weddings to meetings to the dinner plans I have. And yet, on this day–the VERY one–I went out for Chinese food and learned to drive stick shift behind the wheel of a VW Thing in a sun-soaked parking lot with my love. Also on this very day, I lost a friend.
There is the prick and the sting. It is a painful day, an uncomfortable day. Everything, to me, feels a little wrong. Corporate mourning and even memorializing is a challenge because it hits us all different ways.
So will you have grace with me today? I promise to have grace with you, despite my prickliness.
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Linking up this week with Imperfect Prose at Emily Wierenga.
I understand this. I don’t know how to deal with today either. It feels crazy sometimes that life just goes on, when so much has happened, like in the going on we fail to notice the immensity of the tragedy. But that’s not entirely true, because in the continuation of life, we find hope, we find healing. I appreciate your words on this, because I pretty much feel the same. Its messy, this living. Grace is needed in good measure.
Yes, very messy. Just like the rest of life. Only today, a little more in-your-face. Or at least it’s in MY face. I want the going on to go on, yet I am at the same time sort of shocked when it does, and saddened and outraged. And hopeful. It’s a big ball of things, this day, and those other days as well with heavy loss. Thanks, Kris!
It honestly snuck up on me too. I think I’m in the age bracket that will be probably the youngest who will remember 9/11 happening. I’m 21 and was in 4th grade when it happened. Because of 9/11 I have had to send a stepdad and stepbrother both off to the Middle East and I’ve felt that uneasiness. I want to remember, and I want to memorialize, but I’m at the same crossroads as you, how exactly do I do it without being over-the-top, but still recognizing it. ,
Oh, that’s so hard–seeing people off to the Middle East. It’s an uneasy day for all of us, I think, in different ways.
This is one of those days that I choose not to talk about on social networking simply because whatever I write will be wrong to someone and not enough to me. So on the social network sites I am the ‘life as normal’ girl. But in real life…that is entirely different. I think and ponder and pray, and think and ponder and pray some more. I will talk about it face-to-face and go into deep conversation if that is where it leads. I will cry out to God, not only about this past memory, but also about our future. I will seek Him. But on social network, I’m am probably looked down upon because I simply don’t go there. *Sigh*
I realize that I am okay talking about it to some degree on social media, but I don’t want to in person. It’s just hard and I’m realizing that we all handle it differently and I just want to be gracious because I don’t know how someone else is responding in secret.
Prickly. That’s a good word for it. It was 5 weeks before my wedding and my husband worked in NYC at the time. I couldn’t find him for hours, I didn’t know if there would be another attack, and I was scared to death that he wasn’t going to make it out of Manhattan alive. But he came home and he was fine and this day weighs on me, even though I didn’t lose anyone personally. I know plenty who did. I had clients in the towers, but they were, thank goodness, all OK. I didn’t lose anyone, and yet, this day is so hard. I tend to just get through without dwelling because I can feel that fear like it was yesterday and I hate it.
That is SO intense. I can imagine the fear still being so close for you!
This was said so well, Kirsten. All of it. I feel the guilt for living my life normally, the sadness for those who never will on this day, the grief for those left behind, and the uncertainty of how to behave at all. I’m with you and will always have grace with you – prickly or not. Love your face. xox
Thanks for the grace. It’s such a weird and hard day all around, for all of us in the varying ways we deal with it!
LOVE this call to Grace friend… i’m highlighting this on my blog under “stuff i dig.” Love to you…
Thanks so much! Glad always to connect with you. 🙂
“Prickly” is a really good word, Kirsten. I never want to forget a moment of this day, and I don’t want anyone else to, either. And yet, I don’t want to dwell on it. I was living in Saudi Arabia when this happened, and it wasn’t an easy place to be. I did lose personal friends in these attacks; I have friends who lost family. My daughter remembers this day vividly, but she wasn’t even 5 years old at the time. Sometimes I share on social media, sometimes I don’t because it feels trite, and that is the last thing I am about on this day. So thank you for writing this, for putting into words that hard “how am I supposed to acknowledge this feeling” feeling that we all have. We will always remember, and maybe we will one day it will feel more hopeful than painful.