story1695.xml

story1695.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-03

I had trouble waking up that morning (I'm narcoleptic) and decided to report to my temp job late. It was my boyfriend's birthday, so we decided to take the morning slow to celebrate. I heard something about a plane crash on the radio while primping in front of the mirror. I went into the living room and started flipping through the cable news channels. CNN was showing the first plane crash into the tower. Then they broke to live footage. As I watched that second plane hit, I started yelling to my boyfriend, "Something really big has happened. Something terrible. Come look. Look!!" He couldn't believe it. Horrified, I sat in absolute silence with tears streaming down my cheeks. Lists of friends and family ran through my head. Could anyone be in New York? Did Paul's sister ever get that investment banking job? Is my dad in the air right now, ready to fly into a building? I was thrilled when I finally got in touch with my family members, and figured out that no one I know was hurt in attack, and automatically felt horrible for those who suffered loss with this. I also felt a little guilty because it wasn't me, and helpless because I couldn't do anything about it. I called in sick to work.

Then I started pondering why. Was it some weird technical glitch with air traffic control? Maybe something left over from Y2K? None of those seemed plausible. When the word "hijacked" was mentioned, fear crept into my heart. What if they have bio-weapons? What if they hit all of the nation's capital or large cities? I live in a capital city, so does my mother. What if trains are hijacked, or trucks filled with explosives are going down the street right now? (I drove around the city paranoid for weeks after the attacks. It took me a while to get out of the house again, for fear of being attacked in a movie theater or a mall.)

CNN mentioned Pennsylvania and the Pentagon next. Fear turned to anger. My weird coincidence theory was blown out of the water. Who could do this? Who could be capable of murdering so many innocent people at once? I cried and cried. I still have a good, hard cry at least once a month.

Being an Air Force brat, I grew up on "heightened alert." You didn't dress like an American when going off base in Germany, lest a terrorist kidnap you. You didn't drive an American car. You always looked around for suspicious people. Nuclear war was in the air, and it sometimes seemed stifling. When Daddy plays wargames for a living, war seems iminent. We left the Frankfurt airport one day before terrorists blew the lobby to bits. But never could I have expected anything like this.

I couldn't expect the outpoor of love and patriotism afterward, either. Being part of Gen-X, patriotism always seemed like something put in a can and listed on sale every Fourth of July. Now I know better. I talk to my parents every week now, and visit my father (who is only an hour away) much more often. I started volunteering at the humane society, because I don't know if I'll be here tomorrow, and I want to do something that makes me feel good while I'm around.

I suppose those jerks didn't take anything away from me, only added feelings and a sense of commitment that may not have been possible otherwise.

Thanks for reading my rant.