Yesterday was the 10th anniversary for 9/11. Here in New York we were on high alert since these assholes love anniversary dates. Every other block had a check point and traffic would stop to a crawl as police inspected vans, trucks and anybody looking suspicious which meant a crap load of taxis got stopped as well. ”. I stood there waiting for my bus watching the police do this for a full 40 minutes. People in the street seemed to be pleased at the measures being taken to protect them and some of them said they indeed “felt safe” (because apparently a man waiting for the bus at 12:00am is just screaming conversation starter). I thought to myself, if a terrorist went out of his way to get the materials needed to blow up a truck and himself in it I’m sure he’s at least smart enough to check traffic reports about roadblocks and checkpoints..soooo..What’s to stop him from just turning around and hitting a mall a few blocks in the opposite direction? It was a false sense of security. Truth is while we try to move on from the events that shook our lives on that fateful day we still have not recovered. We are still damaged, still angry, still hurt. So on our anniversary, a day of reflecting I ask the question where are we now? what has 9/11 taught us?
I never thought in all my years on this miserable Earth that I would have experienced something like 9/11. Manhattan is only 15 away from me; I could smell the smoke in my neighborhood. I saw the buildings go down and I like many, many others here in this city felt that sinking feeling in our stomachs. The shock of witnessing that devastating attack knowing in those buildings were people, lots of people. That day I was glued to the television while frantically making calls to my friends and family who worked in Manhattan. They were scared, they had no idea what was going on, where to go, what to do. I acted like a hub helping them understand the events that just unfolded and helped guide them to their destinations since the City was completely shut down. Some were frozen in fear thinking they were under attack, others just ran, ran as far as they could without turning back then ran some more.
At the time of the event I was living alone in a small basement. I had just broken up with my girlfriend. I made a quick call to her to check if she was ok. I knew her school was close to the World Trade Center. It's so strange, not long before I broke up with her she took me to see the World Trade Center. A New Yorker all my life and I never bothered to visit. She had me stand up against the building and look up. We stood there like a couple of kids in love, giggling, hugging and just loving life in the middle of these two massive towers. It was one of those moments you’ll see in some cliché romance movie but it was real and it was all mine. So as I sat there alone in my basement, after all the calls had been made, all my friends were safe, a few of my friend’s friends were already dead, at 3am I finally turned off the television and went to bed. There I lay thinking about that very moment, Imagining her smile as she showed me something I never experienced before and how thankful I was for that. How for my own self deprecating ways I pushed aside the one thing that made me happy in a very,very long time. Amidst the worst day in the history of days in New York, in my misery and depression, there she was again, making me happy in just a memory.
The day after Sept 11 I decided to call her and win her back. That day I made the decision to live life. That life was too damn short to worry about petty things because in an instant, some dipsh** with a religious agenda will want to make you an example. F*** that, that’s not the world I will settle in. The world I will choose to live in will contain the happiness I wish to create and once I create that happiness I vowed to relish every second of it. After some smooth moves (the Fury of the Film Fan way) I did win her back and now she’s my wife. We’re going on 7 years married and we have a 6 year old son who is the shining light in this disgusting evil world. This world that is a world that is clearly not intended for us.
And while I knew full on well that tragedy can hit us at any moment, That in a blink of an eye I can lose my wife, my son, my father or my mother, I will absorb everything good each day has to offer. It’s how I have lived my life since that attack.
I've always felt kind of distanced to the 9/11 attack, for a number of reasons. I was eleven when it happened, and can't really say I understood the impact at the time. Also, as I live in Norway it wasn't exactly close to home. There were nobody I knew there, and we haven't been keeping it up with the yearly memorials as you guys respectfully have. With the safety we've maintained there was never any large reason for us to worry.
ReplyDeleteTruth is, it wasn't until earlier this year we experienced a similar event. Living in such a small country, I'm not sure how well it was covered overseas, or if it even was.
A right-wing extremist detonated a car bomb near the parliament building, and used the confusion to go ashore on an island with a youth camp of politicly active teens. He was dressed as a policeman, so there wasn't any real suspicion until he started shooting everyone in sight. By the time the police got there and arrested him, he had already killed 69 people on the island, and eight more in the bombing.
Compared to the number of killed in the 9/11, it probably seems like nothing, but we're a small country, so most of us knew someone on the island. My brother was one of the lucky ones that got away, but the horror stories he brought with him made it all too real.
I find it really admireable how you used your experience to turn it into something beautiful. Best wishes to you and your family. Keep it up, man.