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.
