story20737.xml

story20737.xml

born-digital

story

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no

2006-09-11

Today is the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. In the aftermath of the attacks, my husband and I, like so many people, found ourselves in financial peril as he was laid off from his job (dot com bomb) and my small income couldn't pay the bills. So, in September of '02 we left NYC bound for Florida.

Here it is - 2006 - and we're still in Florida. Unfortunately, my husband has found himself out of work again just as the fifth anniversay of 9/11 arrives. Reliving the scenes from the attacks I'm flooded with the old burden of fear of being victims of the next major terrorist plot. When I turn away from the television news coverage, I look at the faces of my two children and realize that the more pressing worries are about the mundanely dire prospect of surviving on my husband's unemployment with a mortgage, a minivan, and all of the other financial obligations that come with suburban life.

It's from my newly pretending-to-be-mature vantage point that I can look back on the events of 9/11 and see the impact of the loss more clearly. Where my brutal memories were once shadowed with fear of the faceless, dark-skinned man who terrorizes me with a knife in my worst nightmares, today's nightmares involve the all too real and simple terror of knowing that my children may never grow up with the feeling of relative safety that I enjoyed in my youth. A child of the 80's coldwar Reagan era, I can distinctly recall that whenever my I would worry about AIDS, the threat of nuclear proliferation or starvation in Africa, I could find comfort in knowing that really terrible, mass-casualty disasters and terrorist attacks happened in other countries - not in the USA.

Of course, 9/11 and a little thing called parenting changed all of that. Now I see the tenuous precipe on which all of free society stands and has always stood. The reality of the concept of security as a necessary illusion in order for societies to function weighs on me heavily. Disasters, starvation, and terrorist attacks do happen in the USA.

I have a deeper respect for "the greatest generation" - my grandparents generation - and wonder how they will feel not knowing how the story ends. Do they worry that all of their sacrifices will be for nought as we are increasingly viewed as aggressors in the world, rather than a force for good, decency and tolerance? How I wish I could put myself back into the "zone" and buy hook, line and sinker into the concept of safety of security again which that generation paid for in blood so many years ago. But I can't. I don't know that I'll ever be able to let my guard down again. All I can do is participate in the political process, support my family and hope for the best for my children. I suppose that's one of the many things that my grandparent's generation foughti for in WWII.

I look back on my time in New York City with feelings of privelege, longing and a bit of shame. Shame because the "real" New Yorkers are still there, making the city as resilient and diverse and amazing as it's always been. I, on the other hand, moved on. But I hope the city knows that I think of it daily, and always with longing. I feel longing for New York city with every lackluster chain restaurant dining experience, with every small-time theater production I see that can't quite muster the gusto of one you'll see off-off Broadway. No all-day shopping trip is ever as fruitful or satisfying as one 30-minute walk down Houston street on a lunch break. No walk through the park can compare to a walk through Central Park on a Sunday morning in May. And, in my heart, no September morning will ever be as profoundly pristine as the morning of 9/11/01.