I don't know what to say today. Some friends of mine have been leaning towards "get over it," but I'm not there yet. A few people are also on the "Let's bomb the fuck out of anything that moves" (that's grossly oversimplified and not what they said, but that's what I fear), and I can't go along with that. Many are decrying the commercialization, the exploitation of the tragedy, which I find appalling.

The Chicago Tribune has World Trade Center debris in one of its windows. I saw it yesterday and nearly spit. What are you saying -- "Hey, we're the Trib, and we're important enough to have a relic?" Fuck that. Bastards.

I won't -- can't -- watch the TV coverage of the memorials. I won't participate in a televised frenzy of grief. That doesn't feel real to me, it feels put on, acted out for the cameras. I don't do well in organized outpouring in emotion. I never have.

But I can't "get over it." I'm not built that way any more.

I used to be able to compartmentalize very well -- too well. When I was 16, my grandmother had a heart attack. I knew it was serious, but I also knew that I wasn't supposed to let my emotions get in the way of my life. So I filed it away in my brain. That night, it was my turn to say grace at dinner. As I was praying, I knew there was something I was supposed to mention, but I just couldn't remember what it was. So I thanked god for the food, and asked him to watch over us, and, um, yeah, that's it, I guess. And then my mom said "Sarah, you didn't pray from Grandma." I hadn't. I'd forgotten about her. That's the only way I knew how to work it.

Years later, when my other grandmother was dying, I was with my parents at her nursing home. I called my sister Laura on a whim, for something trivial. It didn't occur to me that a call from our grandmother's deathbed, for most people, would probably only mean one thing. Why should it? I was getting on with life, not letting my emotions get in the way, "getting over it." (Laura ripped me a new one. As well she should have.)

All of that is a drawn-out way of saying that I've learned that I can't just "get over it," I can't give myself the approved 10 minutes or after-work hours to grieve. I've learned it doesn't work that way for me. Unless I let myself feel grief and rage and fear and sadness as it happens, whenever it happens, I won't let myself feel it at all.

There are times when I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing, times when I wish I was as walled off as I used to be. I liked being untouchable, unflappable -- it made things easier. But that wasn't real, either.

If you can get over it, if you can go on as if nothing has happened -- more power to you, I guess. But I'm still scared, and sad, and furious, and mournful. And I can't make that go away -- not without denying it's there at all.

September 11 wasn't my tragedy, in that no one I knew, and no one they knew, was killed or hurt. And I thank god for that. But the fact that it happened at all is reason enough to grieve. So that's what I'm doing. You can tell me that I'm a slave to marketing messages or a bleeding-heart liberal or a soft-headed, soft-hearted wimp or whatever you like. It's just something I need to do. And if you need to as well -- well, I'm here with you. I don't know if it matters, but I am.