Many of us are still struggling to shake off the malaise induced by the WTC attack… many of us haven’t been as productive as we’ve been in the past. Talking with friends this week, I’ve found many are apologetic and guilty: they haven’t been able to get much done and since they didn’t lose anyone they knew personally, they feel that their grief is somehow out of place, out of measure.
Our president told us to go back to work. He promised to get those guys (who ever “those guys” are). But he didn’t tell us how to deal with our loss– and we all had a loss. The loss of our precious ordinariness. A plane flying over head that was invisible to me last month fills me with sorrow for lost dreams. A large truck makes me nervous about chemical warfare. A young male friend suddenly seems vulnerable to draft and death. Our assumptions have been shaken, and an unfocused fear has taken its place.
So give yourself permission to mourn your everyday life, interrupted so brutally. Don’t feel guilty for the past malaise. Then take stock in your pleasures: your favorite album, your favorite movie, your favorite book. Open the nice bottle of wine you’ve been saving, buy the hardback version of the novel from your favorite author, the rare import CD from your favorite band. Stop staring listlessly at the monitor and steal away from work to catch some sunshine. Admit we all lost something Tuesday– not metaphorically, but truly. Only then we can do what we each need to return to our lives. Each in our own way, at our own pace.