9/11/01

This will be what everyone writes about today. Of course. It’s probably the top thing on all of our minds. I know it is on mine.

But just ask yourself, where were you when the World Trade Center Twin Towers went down and the Pentagon was attacked?

I was in room 223 at Craig High School, Mrs. Wolters’ AP English class, second hour, watching it happen live on T.V. with Jay and Harry and Emily and Christine and Lex and all the others…Jay’s vocal commentary (not a bad thing) will always stick out in my mind.

It doesn’t matter who “saw it first” or who has “bragging rights.” Those things don’t mean shit. Not at all.

I saw the planes hit, not live, of course, there wasn’t media coverage at that point, but I saw (live) as the towers turned into dust. And I saw the people leaping from the windows…and I felt the oddest combination of intense disgust and shock, fear and replusion, but at the same time, almost complete apathy.

We are so far removed, yet so involved. I can’t comprehend it. But I will never, ever fly again. That’s all I can say.

And how scary to hear the boys you grew up with talk about how if there’s a war, they’d be drafted. How completely fucking frightning.

And when your kids ask you what those buildings are in old pictures of the NYC skyline, you can tell them. And you can tell them that we never expect these things to happen. But they do. And they scare the shit out of us. And we’re never the same again, all of us. Even in the tiniest ways.

Yeah, that’ll scare your kids. But I’m a kid. And I’m scared.

We think we’re so safe. But in the “real world,” nothing is. Accept it. Move on. And remember to watch over your shoulder and lock your door at night. There’s more than just the shadows out there.

There is a lot of hate in this world and innocent people have to die because of it. That’s just how it is. Unless, of course, YOU can think of some way fix it, and I mean FIX it. So don’t give me any of that “we need to be positive” crap…we’re beyond that.

The skyline isn’t the same and it never will be again. The skyline of the city, of our nation, of our minds and hearts.

You know what Sarah H. said to me the other day? “When we go back to New York City, I want to go visit the World Trade Center and ride to the top.”

I’m sorry, Sarah. You can’t.

I’ve seen a lot in my 17 years on this planet: the Berlin Wall come down, the first attack on the WTC, the Oklahoma City bombing, Columbine (and all the rest), and now this. It makes me sick. And a lot more scared than I let on. A lot more. Logical reasoning does not help in this situation because this WASN’T logical. What was logical was the reaction we had to this. Myra running off to the bathroom, closely followed by me during band aux. was logical. And REAL.

I don’t know anyone in New York at this time (although we are currently trying to track down my cousins Shawn and Scott because they might have been there), but I can still be scared. The girl in the hall who giggled, flipped her hair, and said, “Why are you worrying? It doesn’t affect us,” was so full of shit. It DOES affect us. It affects what I was taught to believe in, what values I was raised on, it goes against my whole moral being.

And yet it all seems so unreal…

“What a world, what a world…”