I don't know what to write. I've been crying in anticipation for this event for literal weeks; looking up pictures and stories and old diary entries and just weeping. I sometimes worry that September 11th effected me much more than it reasonably should have - I did not directly know anyone killed on that day, I did not yet live in Lower Manhattan (or even within city limits), but... it is a daily thought of mine. Like, I actively try to avoid 9:11 on the clock because I don't need another reminder of it.
I never want to forget how I feel about this. I think, worse than me being so hyper-sensitive about September 11th would be to let it fade from memory. Horrific acts of terror and hatred cannot be forgotten - it is through memory that connections are made, and that victims can live on. Life as we knew it as a country, as an entire planet ceased to exist at 8:46 EST 10 years ago. Families torn apart, lives ended, and we all lost a huge sense of security and safety. For weeks (if we're honest, for years), no one knew if another strike was coming at any moment. No one I know could hear or see a plane flying overhead without paranoidly feeling it was flying to low/off to do something horrible. Nothing made sense. Everything was scary.
For the first few years after it happened, I could tell you what clothes I was wearing to school that day. Unfortunately, that detail is gone for me now, and THAT scares me. I still know exactly where I was (Dr. Lagana's 4th period honors U.S. history class, row by the windows, 3 seats back, next to a weird black box/radio that was talking about the World Trade Center), who was around me (diagonal to Nicole, Josh Simon, Sarah Rennie, Lenny Cagno, Stacey Cohen, Jessica Rosenfeld, Kristen Holder, Joe Weinstein, Tom Rizzuto and a few other kids in the class with me).
- I still remember how none of us knew what was happening when we came into class, noisy as always. And Doc didn't do anything to quiet us down. I was the closest to the radio that was mysteriously on, and the woman was talking about the World Trade Center. We kept talking, waiting for Doc to settle us down, to explain to us why we were listening to a recording of the '93 bombing. Was it related to the talk we'd had on Friday of last week when we'd debated whether or not we should be looking into technology that would create a force field around American soil to keep us safe from outsider attacks? How?
Then I heard them say 'plane' and I knew that something was very, very wrong. There hadn't been a plane in 1993; it was a truck in the basement with a bomb in it. Airplane was not related. Slowly the room quieted down. Doc was leaning on the edge of his desk; he couldn't even stand up. I won't ever forget his eyes; sometimes I can SEE his eyes in my head and I feel my heart rip open. "This...is happening
now".
Then...chaos. Knowing that Sarah's dad worked down there. That Nicole's dad's place of work is in lower Manhattan. That just 2 days prior I'd half-heartedly made up with Eric and now his father working down there was making me feel sick.
- The rest of that day was a blur. Every class we just silently watched the TV screens; I don't know why, but watching it in Spanish class really sticks out in my mind. The hallways were eerie; no one knew what to say. Lots of hugging; I remember hugging people I didn't even know very well, but it just seemed like the right thing to be doing. The rest of the week was like that, too - just fear and nausea and not knowing what was coming. Repeatedly seeing graphic images of the crashes, people jumping, the buildings collapsing...
For as much as I have a reputation as being a cryer, I wasn't able to cry until Friday. I remember that clearly, too. I was listening to the radio before school and it just finally fully hit me, what had happened, that there might still be people trapped inside, alive and dying at the same time, that I couldn't do anything...and I just laid down on the floor and let myself cry out everything inside of me.
- I remember for months, the sense of 'being an American' was huge; that it wasn't just New York, where a town away from mine you could see the smoke billowing out of the rubble. Everyone stopped fighting for a second and tried to come together. It rocked all of us to our cores, with New York City as the epicenter. We were all brethren, and it was a beautiful time in our country. It is clearly long gone (have you heard some of the political debates of late? I feel stupider listening to these people who are hoping to run our nation), but I wish that wasn't so. For a few, brief months, we actually felt like A COUNTRY - a united front with similar goals who were coming through a tragedy together and wanted the same things - to make it better.
Where were you? What's your story? What's your connection to 9/11?
love
