story6335.xml

story6335.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-12

There are two things about my reaction on September 11th that still surprise me when I look back. The first is how I responded when I heard of the attacks. I was sitting on my couch having just gotten up the motivation to start on some school work. My mom called and told me to quickly turn on the TV because two planes had flown into the World Trade Center. I immediately said, "What? Did the planes get lost?" "No!" she said, "It's terrorists!" Like so many others, I was naive enough at that moment to think that no one would maliciously fly planes into a building. What surprises me about this is that I can no longer remember what it felt like to be that innocent. When I think of my initial reaction, I can't understand how I would think of anything but terrorism because my mindset now, and even just days after September 11th, are so far removed from that naive person who picked up the phone that day.
The other thing that surprises me about my reaction is that after watching the attacks on TV for a short while, I felt fiercely compelled to lock up the apartment securely. I shut all windows and bolted all doors in a frenzy. I felt that vulnerable: as if someone was going to show up at my little apartment in the middle of the NY countryside and attack me. But I really did feel that way. If someone had done this to major buildings, they could be anywhere ready to do anything. I thought our country was falling apart. I can't recapture or comprehend how I could've felt that afraid and vulnerable because it is so illogical, but I know that I did not unbolt those doors or open the windows, no matter how hot it was inside the apartment, until late in the day.
Most of all, I grieved the loss of the World Trade Center. Is it possible to grieve buildings? Is it even right to do that when there are thousands of people grieving human life? I grappled with those questions, yet still found myself constantly reminiscing all of the important moments in my life that the towers had been there for: I sat in their shadow in the courtyard watching a concert with my mom during our last outing before I left home for graduate school; I looked out at them from a lighthouse on the NJ coast, near my hometown in Monmouth County, as my then-boyfriend proposed to me; I spent countless hours in Hoboken during a summer internship staring across the river at them as I contemplated my future career plans; I sailed by and marveled at them in the middle of the night at my high school Post-Prom party onboard a boat; I stood on top of one of them and saw the city lying at my feet...Yes, I had many memories of those buildings, of that skyline, and now that's all that was left: memories. I still feel guilty for mourning buildings that are only concrete and steel when there was flesh and blood to be mourned, but I could not change my true thoughts and feelings. Somehow those towers symbolized more to me and played a role in my life that went beyond just being buildings. I've only seen the NY skyline twice since the attacks despite the numerous times that I have been in NJ and the fact that my favorite place to go used to be into Atlantic Highlands to look out at the skyline. It is too painful to look now. Somehow if I don't see it with my own eyes, I can still deny that it happened. Even a year later. I'll probably say the same decades from now. It's a wound that we all bear that will never fully heal I think, but we move on and live our lives and pray for the families of the victims and that's all that we can do. Somehow, life goes on.