I complain about all the 9/11 coverage on this anniversary, but I’m just as bad. Can’t help it. The scab has been torn off. It’s easy for me to say “Time to move on” because I didn’t lose anyone close to me.

I did lose a part of me that day, as every New Yorker did. Don’t get me wrong. I know that it wasn’t only New Yorkers who suffered that Tuesday. It was America. And Muslims. And the world.

The east river kept me at a distance as I watched the towers burn. Lucky for me I didn’t witness people jumping, but it was close enough to violate all five senses. The site of the towers coming down. The burning smell that lingered for weeks. The sirens and crying and screaming around me. The dust in the air. We all felt it and tasted it.

“Never forget!” But where is that getting us? Can we start remembering the victims and the towers with a smile again? Why do the towers have to be about THAT moment? What about the time you went to the top? Or when you ate at Windows on the World? Or picnicked in near the sphere?

How about every time I got off the subway in the city and looked for those towers to figure out which direction I was heading in? Or when I looked across the water from The Brooklyn Promenade and realized how lucky I was that I had grown up with the most magnificent skyline in the world?

The Twin Towers were more than just 9/11. And those victims lived lifetimes before they were cut short. Why do we have to remember them as “gone”? Let’s just remember them.