If you've ever been around me when the topic of 9/11 comes up, you might know that I choose not to talk about it. I also try not to think about it because I find it too disturbing and depressing. It's hard to even write about it and I don't watch any of the movies or TV specials. The world changed forever after that day. But 10 years later, I feel obligated to talk about it. Maybe it will be therapeutic.
It was senior year of college, so I was up in southern Connecticut and not in New York. At the time, I used to set multiple alarms to wake up (just like I do now) including my radio and TV (at the highest volumes as my shared wall "neighbor" was the stairwell). I woke up exactly when it happened. I don't know if it was subconsciously hearing the news or just internally knowing something was wrong. It's one of those inexplicable things but it felt like a bad dream.
I was glued to the news coverage before class and then finally pulled myself away to go. There were plenty of people who had been out and about and hadn't heard the news along the way. I felt bad sharing the news, but also felt like people needed to know what happened (and were going to hear it at some point). This was before the age of smartphones and widespread wi-fi so things mostly spread by word of mouth or from other sources when you were back in your room.
Class was weird. No one knew what to do. People tried to act like things were normal but everyone knew they weren't. I think once everyone realized what happened, classes were cancelled for the rest of the day. I couldn't stop watching the 24 hour news channels for days, even though nothing changed and the news kept getting worse and worse. I think they told us that they wanted things to go back to normal at school but understood (since there were a lot of New Yorkers at school) if that was difficult for people.
At some point that morning (not sure if it was before or after class), I tried calling home to make sure everyone was OK. After all, it wouldn't be impossible for family to be there, even though I gave myself good reasons why everyone wouldn't be. When my mom and I used to take the bus to the city, we would always stop by the WTC area - to shop, to make a bathroom pit stop, to eat something. My dad could have had a meeting in the area. It wasn't impossible and I was worried. Luckily, everything was fine, although when I tried to call my dad, I heard he was in a tornado zone. It wasn't a tornado, but debris was spreading to other boroughs. Everything about that time period was surreal. No other word to describe living through something like that. Over the following days and weeks, there were tons of stories of people who, for one reason or another, just missed being there that tragic morning, whether they woke up late or decided to run an errand. Unfortunately, there were also stories of people we knew who didn't make it out. I grew up in a community with a lot of cops and firefighters. It was really sad. Even though their actions embodied heroism, their families would forever be without them.
The days and weeks after 9/11 were strange. People did try to go back to normal. We went to class. We even threw birthday parties. But I always noticed a seriousness and somberness in the air that wasn't there before. I went to candlelight vigils. I went to activities in the chapel and just spent quiet time there. I cried frequently. At some point, I stopped watching the news because I couldn't take it anymore.
A few weeks after 9/11, I went back home. My dad picked me up near Grand Central and drove home. I don't know how people managed to keep a normal routine in NYC. All over, there were posted stories of missing people or people who died. It was in GCT, it was by the armory, it was everywhere. Hope and loss. You could still see some smoke from the WTC site, and it was the first time I had seen the city skyline without the distinctive Twin Towers. It was so strange. (I can't even tell you how weird it was to see them back in the Fringe alternate world.) You could tell that the world was never, ever, going to be the same.
I have barely spent any time near Ground Zero in the past 10 years. A lot of people took photos of the large hole in the ground, but I never did because I thought of it as a mass grave. I didn't like looking at it, because everything reminded me of everything we lost. Now, looking at Ground Zero, it looks incredibly different. There are new buildings and memorials, after years of just being a giant crater in the ground. The city is trying to move forward, 10 years later. But, in my opinion, this is a wound from which the city will never fully heal (and can't be expected to). It's something that those of us who lived through it will never forget.
