It was a really rough day yesterday. I vowed to spend the entire day not turning on the television, not posting to Facebook, because I just don’t want to hear the sad tributes anymore.

Each year is the same. I wake up in the morning with a bright, fresh outlook, thinking I am ready to move on. I have paid ten years of tribute to the fatalities, the families, and the firefighters. Now, I am paying tribute in the best way I know how. Forgiveness, and moving forward. I wake up with a bright optimism that I will really be able to turn it off, and move on.

I don’t want to remember anymore.

But then, there is no escaping it. The emails start to come from friends. “Thinking of you always, but on this day especially.” The tributes start to roll on Facebook. I see what my friends are saying about that day. My boss who tried with certain, steadfast urgency to locate each one of us, all on our way in to lower Manhattan that day. My Admin Assistant who was frantically locked in the basement while it all unfolded because they didn’t know which was safer, huddling there or going outside. My friend who ran for his life. My sailing buddies who broadcast an email roll call as we were all accounted for, one by one. News from our CEO about walking the streets that day, looking for remants of our office on the 110th floor.

It’s always the same. By noon, the tears are rolling. I am remembering the phone call. I am remembering watching the buildings implode. I am remembering the man on the banks of the Hudson with whom I shared a life changing conversation. I am remembering the fighter jets overhead. And I am remembering the gray ash that splattered all over my legs as I rode my bike through the canyon for the first time, thinking, “What all is in that mud??”

I cannot help but remember.

I held fast in my conviction that I would not turn on the TV for the entire day. But “what you resist persists.” So instead of seeing it on the TV, I saw it in my dreams all night.

So next year, I may as well succumb to the media mourning. Watch all the tributes on television Give in and wallow in the sadness of “We will never forget!” with everyone else.

Maybe it feels better than suffering in silence….