This is how I feel.

From today's New York Times, by Francine Prose:

We should remember. And not only because the missing - the dead - should not be forgotten; not only because we need to be reminded that the other shoe may indeed drop; not only because, given how much violence and killing there are in the world right now, we need to recall that so many died here, as well.

We need to remember because that day, New Yorkers lived in a war zone. Five years later, the most familiar neighborhood places still have the power to evoke the horrors of battle. That day, many New Yorkers and indeed many Americans - again, the fortunate ones - came the closest we've come to the experience of living through a war at home. I want to remember partly because I feel it's the nearest I can come to imagining what it's like for the millions of civilians, not unlike us, people in the Middle East and other places where local wars are being fought, people who are perpetually seeing their cityscapes transformed into grim reminders.

Unasked for, melancholy landmarks appear constantly as the innocent try to survive the destruction, the Sept. 11 that goes on for them, not just for one day, but relentlessly, from morning until evening, daily, and for years.