September 11: This is not your pain.

[kellinator]

Frankly, I've been something of a basket case today, looking for a spectacle where there is none. I look for signs, but less than half the people have their headlights on, and most seem not to remember.

I watch the coverage even though I'm sickened by its mawkish sentimentality. Like the Morning X crew interviewing a bereaved father... guys, stick to interviewing Triumph the Insult Dog. The only thing that I want to see, horrid as it sounds, is a tape of the coverage last year. I missed most of it as it happened, and as horrible as it is, I never want to forget that day, for those who forget the past are determined to repeat it. I figure I'm going to burn in hell for even thinking this, but don't show me sicky-sweet Lisa Beamer one more time. She freaks me out... but who's to say I wouldn't be the same?

And just as I felt last year, when I looked for the grief counselors and instead found people quietly studying as if it were just another day, and finally found the counselor and burst into tears in her arms as I sputtered "I don't even know anyone there." A voice in my head keeps telling me I have no right to feel this way. It tells me again and again, This is not your pain.

I just looked at http://www.livejournal.com/users/kellinator/day/2001/09/11 and it's remarkable to me how I still feel the same in so many ways. It's happening again in my head.

I was driving and saw a church that had a sign announcing its sanctuary was open today for prayer. I crept in. I was the only one there. I prayed silently. I say this not to gain your approval or convince you I'm a good person, because I'm not. It just felt like something I ought to do for some reason.

The voice will not shut up. This is not your pain. And why not?

Comments

[hooper-x.livejournal.com]

Kelly.

That was an attack on New York and Washington DC in specific, but on a larger scale, it was meant as a fuck you to the entire country, a big flying knife right into the hearts of an entire people. The pain is yours. The pain is mine. Not the same as, say, anyone who lost a family member, or say, my friend Doug, who was in the street when the second plane hit, and was almost struck (and killed) by a falling object that he thinks might have been a corpse.

But it's there. It's real, and it's yours. But it doesn't have to be yours alone.

-h

[atomicnumber51.livejournal.com]

Sweetie, if you're feeling pain, then that pain is yours. You don't have to apologize for feeling it.

It's no one else's right to tell you how you should or should not feel. There's no one right way to deal with this. You feel how you feel and that's part of who you are, and damnit, if this is still the freaking Land of the Free, then it's nobody's buisness but your own. You have to look for what feels right to you.

(ok, done ranting now.)

[jennay138.livejournal.com]

it's everybody's pain, sweetheart.

[thatbelle.livejournal.com]

I'm glad someone else isn't afraid to admit it...I'm sick of Lisa Beamer, too. I went off on a huge tangent about it yesterday.

If you haven't already, get the 9/11 commemorative issue of People....got some good stories in it....not that other things haven't, but this one seemed to have some stories of hope...hmm...encouragement? I dunno.... It seemed to show a little bit of a different side besides Lisa Beamer and the planes hitting the WTC again.

Everyone has different thoughts and feelings about today, Kelly...don't beat yourself up over yours.

Guess that makes you human

[underwhelming.livejournal.com]

For me, the most upsetting thing about 9/11 was not the tragedy itself, but how I reacted to it. I didn't want to feel sad, much less admit to feeling sad, because my thick head told me I had no reason to be sad, since I didn't know any of these people either. But in this one rare case, my heart trumped my head, which proved that I was human. I hate the phrase "only human", because being aware of just how human you are, whether you're sad, angry, depressed, or vengeful, is immeasurably valuable. I would think less of you otherwise.

[gladstone.livejournal.com]

I was working third shift a year ago. I got home from work on the 11th and watched some shows that I recorded the night before. Then I went to bed. I didn't find out what happened until I got to work that evening! I didn't see what happened until the next morning when I got home and turned on the TV after listening to ten hours of radio coverage at work. I can certainly understand your wanting to see tape from last year.