Six years ago, one of the most terrible things I could ever imagine came true. At the time, I was in California on my way to work in LA. I was stuck in the most insane traffic; traffic that was bad even for LA. It was like a parking lot and no one could figure out what the deal was. It was about 6:30am and then suddenly my phone rang and the voice on the other end said "Get off of the freeway and get your ass home right now."
That was it. Just get out of there and get home because shit was going down. I had no other information and no idea what said shit was, so I forced a bunch of cars out of my way and took side streets all the way back home, only to see a replay of the first plane crashing into the WTC the second I walked in the door. I thought it had to be a movie, a joke. There was no way in hell that someone could pull that off, but there it was. People running, terrified through the streets of lower Manhattan as the world literally crashed down around them. I sat on the couch and sobbed for hours.
Here's where it gets weird though. I was on the west coast, 3000 miles away from ground zero. I didn't know anyone in the towers who was killed. I knew someone on his way there, but he was running late and never made it to the meeting, so he's fine and has moved on with his life. I didn't know any of the firemen, the policemen, the cleanup crew....no one. It was a surreal feeling to be waaaay out west and to feel so detached from everything.
People where I lived were upset and horrified just like people all over the US and the world were. The difference was, the sadness in the air was prevalent for a couple of months, and then the American flags started to disappear from the houses and the car antennas and the rhetoric, the discussion and the sense of banding together just sort of slipped away. People stopped consoling each other and it all but disappeared from regular conversation. Nothing "went back" to the way it was before the attacks, but we were all so far away, it just wasn't in our faces anymore. It should have been, but it wasn't.
I moved to the east coast and to New York specifically and now I feel like the gravity of how many people this affected is weighing down the way it should have, back in 2001. People I love deeply have a quiet pain that resonates in them when this day rolls around and I can see the memories and the horror playing out on the screen in their minds. There is no possible way for me to provide comfort in this case and strangely, that's okay. I have been to ground zero a number of times to try in some way to connect with what went on and now I finally feel like I get what New Yorkers got that sunny, eerily beautiful day six years ago. I wasn't here physically on that day, but I felt it then and I feel it now and my heart breaks for everyone who has to relive it all every time the break between summer and fall rolls through.
Fitting that it's raining and gloomy today. My sadness was compounded when I read this: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20657183/site/newsweek/
I wish more people would acknowledge what seems to be so obvious.
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