September 11

It's been 7 years since that day. I don't need to explain it. Everyone knows 9/11.

I've spent some quiet moments today thinking back to that unbelievable day. How awful it was to experience the unfolding of it all, hour after hour. Woken up by the phone, my Mom had just heard the report about the first plane on the radio and told us to turn on the tv. In my jammies, glued to my tiny little corner of the couch, huddled into a fetal position mostly, I watched the smoking buildings, the home video of the planes, the panic, the crumbling of the buildings, the chaos, the grief. Unable to take tear myself away from the constant news, I only left my spot to go to the bathroom, which I did about a hundred times. I peed so many times I didn't know how I could possibly go again - but that was my physical reaction to the complete horror. And I was a million miles away, totally unrelated to anything or anyone there, and just watching on tv. I can't even imagine how much worse it was for the victims, their families and people just living there at the time. I heard them. I watched them. And I still can't imagine how that felt inside. For me it was an emptiness and heartbreak larger than I've ever known, and still hasn't faded away completely. Not fear, not anger, just sadness and grief and devastation. Still.

I've tried to remember the hours, days and weeks that passed too after that single day that changed so much. Things were very different then from where we are now. The world is not the same place and we are still at war with people who didn't have anything to do with that event. So many more people have died. So many more lives are still at stake now.

So much can change in an instant. I'm heading outside for a minute to search the blue sky and listen for airplanes overhead. The eeriest thing ever was the total lack of sound overhead for all those days. I live under the flight path to the airport, you see. And there is the constant and regular little roar overhead of people coming, people going, life moving at a fast pace. But that day it all stopped. Everybody stopped and the silence was deafening. It's comforting now to hear the jets flying about on their regular schedules. Life goes on.