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Then and Now
Sep. 11th, 2004 11:29 pmThree years ago, I was living in a tiny apartment by myself, and working a 12-8pm shift at a fairly big, fairly busy veterinary clinic. Since I didn't have to be in to work until late (for me), I rolled out of bed at some indeterminate time, toasted a bagel, and sat down to check my email and nibble my breakfast to a slow death.
I turned on AIM, and was almost immediately pinged by a dear friend from Ohio, who told me that a plane had flown into the World Trade Center, maybe two. It took me a minute to parse the information, and make sure I was actually awake and not dreaming. Then he told me that one of the planes had come from Logan, and I felt like a lead weight had been dropped on my chest. Irrational as I knew it was, somehow it seemed like being from Boston made me partially responsible for the badness.
A few moments later, my boyfriend showed up online, and I told him what I had learned. He told me that it wasn't a very funny joke, until he realized I wasn't joking. I had to leave for work, so I didn't get to absorb much more information at that point.
The drive to work was slow, since I was caught in the stream of people pouring out of the city, and the rest of the day was even slower. A couple of coworkers and I left to try to give blood, but we couldn't find anywhere that was taking donations that wasn't swamped. I spent most of the afternoon and evening pacing around frantically trying to Do Something and hating a world that would give me the knowledge and power to save lives, then create a disaster that was just far enough away that I couldn't help. I watched the news, and I watched people die, and heard about all the animals dying, and I knew that I could have saved at least some, at least one of them if I were there, and I hated myself and the situation and the people responsible for it. And I stayed at my boyfriend's house and cried on his shoulder and cursed a lot and tried to make myself useful, and it didn't help.
Today I'm still alive. And so are my friends, and so is my country. I'm living with my boyfriend, and next month he'll be my husband. I didn't save any lives in the disaster, but I've saved enough since then to start feeling useful again. And I feel, for myself, that while nothing ever can or should erase the memory of the tragedy, it's part of my responsibility to remember it by celebrating life and helping create enough joy that maybe someday on some giant cosmic scale, things will balance. I was lucky enough to spend today with a wonderful group of friends, doing just that.
I think it's a good start.
I turned on AIM, and was almost immediately pinged by a dear friend from Ohio, who told me that a plane had flown into the World Trade Center, maybe two. It took me a minute to parse the information, and make sure I was actually awake and not dreaming. Then he told me that one of the planes had come from Logan, and I felt like a lead weight had been dropped on my chest. Irrational as I knew it was, somehow it seemed like being from Boston made me partially responsible for the badness.
A few moments later, my boyfriend showed up online, and I told him what I had learned. He told me that it wasn't a very funny joke, until he realized I wasn't joking. I had to leave for work, so I didn't get to absorb much more information at that point.
The drive to work was slow, since I was caught in the stream of people pouring out of the city, and the rest of the day was even slower. A couple of coworkers and I left to try to give blood, but we couldn't find anywhere that was taking donations that wasn't swamped. I spent most of the afternoon and evening pacing around frantically trying to Do Something and hating a world that would give me the knowledge and power to save lives, then create a disaster that was just far enough away that I couldn't help. I watched the news, and I watched people die, and heard about all the animals dying, and I knew that I could have saved at least some, at least one of them if I were there, and I hated myself and the situation and the people responsible for it. And I stayed at my boyfriend's house and cried on his shoulder and cursed a lot and tried to make myself useful, and it didn't help.
Today I'm still alive. And so are my friends, and so is my country. I'm living with my boyfriend, and next month he'll be my husband. I didn't save any lives in the disaster, but I've saved enough since then to start feeling useful again. And I feel, for myself, that while nothing ever can or should erase the memory of the tragedy, it's part of my responsibility to remember it by celebrating life and helping create enough joy that maybe someday on some giant cosmic scale, things will balance. I was lucky enough to spend today with a wonderful group of friends, doing just that.
I think it's a good start.
