5 years later...
So, I wasn't even going to write anything today because when I started this yesterday, it was just too hard, but I don't really need to be that coherent, cuz well, it's my journal. Besides, afterhearing the talk all day long (from an article that one of my friends, who just got a PRIMO -for a super-republican like him- Washington DC speechwriting
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On 9/11, I was sleeping in my parents' house when my Dad woke me up while on the phone with my uncle to tell me to put on CNN. He thought it was just an accident, nothing more serious. I put on the TV and less than 5 minutes later, the second plane hit. It was all so surreal. I'm Canadian, but it still hit me like a sledgehammer. I was obsessed with CNN for weeks. I was unemployed following the end of my practical dental placement - in Arlington, VA. Where my now husband, jpublic, was still working (right beside the Ballston metro stop, if you know the area). Then they cut to DC, and I saw people evacuating that WE KNEW. On CNN, live-to-air. Charles, Chris' project manager, was dating a woman who was working on the renovations at the Pentagon and who had luckily not been there that day. Phone lines were all bad, but I got through at about 1 pm to make sure he was okay - though I know it was unlikely he would have been at the Pentagon, you never know, right? And at the time no one knew what else would be hit. I had to be the one to call his parents because he couldn't manage to get a call out. I had the first panic attack that day in YEARS. Not for the least of which was that I was originally slated to have returned from there on that very day, out of Dulles, but we were not sure how long my visitor's visa was good for so we changed my return date to a week earlier.
Even now I still get waves of panic when I see footage of that day. The commercials for the movie Flight 93 (I think) actually gave me a full-on panic attack. And I wasn't someone who was *directly* affected. No one we knew was hurt or lost someone. I can't imagine what it would be like to be *more* affected than I am. I couldn't bear the pain and the loss.
This year on 9/11 we were on our honeymoon in Italy. Even there it was being remembered. It truly was a life-altering event, worldwide.
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