>11 September 2004
First post in a while
I went down to the ground zero site today. I haven't been there, nor even thought about going there in quite a while. Its not something that I do with any regularity, but somehow I felt that I needed to go this morning to make me whole again.
I'll always remember that three years ago this morning i was sitting at my then crappy office job, trying to plan out a business trip to Philly. I'll always remember watching the first tower burning, thinking that what happened was a horrible accident, but that everyone would find a way to deal with it and go on.
And then the second plane hit and I realized that it was no accident.
And then the first tower collapsed and I realized that the towers weren't destined to stand there and burn to a shell, but rather to collapse into a fine misty rubble that would cover the city forever.
And as the second tower collapsed I realized that things were never really going to be exactly the same.
I keep thinking about the ways that things have changed, and the ways that they have mostly stayed the same.
I always think back to the stories of the older Generation X folks who would tell stories about waiting for a soviet nuclear bomb to strike at any second. The world would light up, flash and bubble and then *poof* it would be over.
I didn't have those thoughts growing up. I didn't have to. I didn't realize how lucky I was not to have some kind of overarching fear slowly waft into my everyday life.
But those days are gone.
No matter how minute the thoughts are, I still think to myself every so often ' I wonder if I shouldn't ride the subway today' or 'I shouldn't be out tonight, should I?' And that will probably never go away.
But all I can do is go on and live life.
I went down to the ground zero site today. I haven't been there, nor even thought about going there in quite a while. Its not something that I do with any regularity, but somehow I felt that I needed to go this morning to make me whole again.
I'll always remember that three years ago this morning i was sitting at my then crappy office job, trying to plan out a business trip to Philly. I'll always remember watching the first tower burning, thinking that what happened was a horrible accident, but that everyone would find a way to deal with it and go on.
And then the second plane hit and I realized that it was no accident.
And then the first tower collapsed and I realized that the towers weren't destined to stand there and burn to a shell, but rather to collapse into a fine misty rubble that would cover the city forever.
And as the second tower collapsed I realized that things were never really going to be exactly the same.
I keep thinking about the ways that things have changed, and the ways that they have mostly stayed the same.
I always think back to the stories of the older Generation X folks who would tell stories about waiting for a soviet nuclear bomb to strike at any second. The world would light up, flash and bubble and then *poof* it would be over.
I didn't have those thoughts growing up. I didn't have to. I didn't realize how lucky I was not to have some kind of overarching fear slowly waft into my everyday life.
But those days are gone.
No matter how minute the thoughts are, I still think to myself every so often ' I wonder if I shouldn't ride the subway today' or 'I shouldn't be out tonight, should I?' And that will probably never go away.
But all I can do is go on and live life.
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