story908.xml
Title
story908.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
story
Date Entered
2002-07-18
911DA Story: Story
As usual, on September 11th, I got up and checked the news on CNN.com and the weather on The Weather Channel over breakfast and coffee ... it was just before 7:45 AM Central Time when I turned off the computer and TV to get ready for work ...
Driving to work, as usual I didn't have the radio on, singing along to a cassette tape instead. I felt amused because there was an older fellow driving a pick-up truck 25 mph on a street where traffic generally goes 45... it wasn't until later, that I realized he must have had the radio on in his truck and that was why he was driving so slow ...
I got to work, and learned what had happened. My department digitizes video so we have a TV for playback of VHS. I arrived at work in time to begin to absorb what had happened before watching the 2nd tower fall ...
My apartment is about 6 miles southwest of Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, on the western edge of the most common arrival and departure corridor. It's totally normal to see planes in the sky. So, a day or two later when I heard a plane overhead, it was so weird to first not pay attention because planes are normal, and then remember that there were no planes flying ... but then, I remembered that it had been arranged for relief flights to leave from DFW that day. I decided to assume that that was the plane I'd heard, because any other alternative was too terrible to contemplate.
It was February 2002 before I stopped watching every plane, wondering if it was where it was supposed to be in the sky ... in that period between September and February, I started noticing planes on approach paths that seemed unusual. I would scrutinize each one, wondering if I was about to see some horror.
I suppose this sounds selfish, or self-absorbed, or something, but the hardest emotion for me to overcome has been guilt. I lost no people. I lost no property. No one I know directly lost either people or property. Even, I was able to learn the news and spend the day with friends, surrounded by sources of support. I felt so devastated, I felt such sorrow, I felt such fear. Yet, I felt unworthy to feel those things, because I'd been so personally untouched, learning about everything from the safe distance of some 1000+ miles.
I really feel that the US has changed, that people in the US have changed. There is a soberness underlying life that wasn't there before. Yet, at the same time, I feel like the US has finally begun to join the world -- a world where it's much more common to live in uncertainty than not, where political violence is known well, where comfort is treasured rather than viewed as a right. Will the world hate us less now that we've experienced this event?
10 months later, and I'm still in the process of understanding what it is to have experienced a life-changing, culture-changing, event. And I only saw the pictures ... I cannot imagine what it must be like for those who witnessed the event with their own eyes, ears, with their own senses.
Driving to work, as usual I didn't have the radio on, singing along to a cassette tape instead. I felt amused because there was an older fellow driving a pick-up truck 25 mph on a street where traffic generally goes 45... it wasn't until later, that I realized he must have had the radio on in his truck and that was why he was driving so slow ...
I got to work, and learned what had happened. My department digitizes video so we have a TV for playback of VHS. I arrived at work in time to begin to absorb what had happened before watching the 2nd tower fall ...
My apartment is about 6 miles southwest of Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, on the western edge of the most common arrival and departure corridor. It's totally normal to see planes in the sky. So, a day or two later when I heard a plane overhead, it was so weird to first not pay attention because planes are normal, and then remember that there were no planes flying ... but then, I remembered that it had been arranged for relief flights to leave from DFW that day. I decided to assume that that was the plane I'd heard, because any other alternative was too terrible to contemplate.
It was February 2002 before I stopped watching every plane, wondering if it was where it was supposed to be in the sky ... in that period between September and February, I started noticing planes on approach paths that seemed unusual. I would scrutinize each one, wondering if I was about to see some horror.
I suppose this sounds selfish, or self-absorbed, or something, but the hardest emotion for me to overcome has been guilt. I lost no people. I lost no property. No one I know directly lost either people or property. Even, I was able to learn the news and spend the day with friends, surrounded by sources of support. I felt so devastated, I felt such sorrow, I felt such fear. Yet, I felt unworthy to feel those things, because I'd been so personally untouched, learning about everything from the safe distance of some 1000+ miles.
I really feel that the US has changed, that people in the US have changed. There is a soberness underlying life that wasn't there before. Yet, at the same time, I feel like the US has finally begun to join the world -- a world where it's much more common to live in uncertainty than not, where political violence is known well, where comfort is treasured rather than viewed as a right. Will the world hate us less now that we've experienced this event?
10 months later, and I'm still in the process of understanding what it is to have experienced a life-changing, culture-changing, event. And I only saw the pictures ... I cannot imagine what it must be like for those who witnessed the event with their own eyes, ears, with their own senses.
Collection
Citation
“story908.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed December 16, 2025, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/16508.