It's astounding to me that 9/11 was ten years ago today - In some ways I feel like it was so much longer ago and in other ways, I feel like it was just last year.
I'd graduated from NYU that year. I walked in May but stayed on to take a summer course (British Lit. with dreamy Professor Thomas March). It was the kind of summer you'd want to live over and over again. I was up late every night with my best friends, watching Sports Night reruns, The Daily Show... Drinking beer and laughing about nothing. I read the first four Harry Potter books in about ten days and worked at the front desk of our dorm to be able to live there for free.
On September 9, I went to the financial district to meet with a headhunter. I needed to grow up and find a job. Her office was across the street from the Twin Towers.
The Fall semester was about to begin and I was growing sad. I was a year ahead of my friends. They would all head back to classes on Tuesday, September 11. I'd not yet figured out what to do with myself. I planned to go visit my cousins on Long Island on that day but on the 10th, took off a day early.
That night, feeling reflective, I stayed up until 4am, working on a script and some short stories. I watched a couple movies ("You Can Count on me" and some of my cousin's Star Trek tapes).
On September 11, I woke up at about noon. My cousins had all left to go to work. I wandered out to the kitchen. I made a snack. I went back to my room and I turned on the TV.
A strange movie was on. Or was it a movie? The channel was CNN, not HBO. And the towers were crumbling to rhe ground.
I FREAKED OUT. My cell phone wasn't working. The house phone wasn't working. I dialed and dialed through a fit of tears. I checked the internet and saw what was happening. I finally reached my parents, who didn't know I'd left the city a day early. My cousins returned home, worried about their son who worked in the financial district (later, we'd learn he walked miles and miles, covered in ash and soot, to his apartment, in a daze). I was able to reach some of my friends, who were okay but scared. And was sad to learn one of our security guards from the front desk - who was only a part time security guard and full time NYPD officer - was one of the first policemen on the scene and was in tower five when it fell.
It was surreal. Which is putting it mildly. It was UNreal.
My visit with my cousins had only been planned for a couple days but I stayed for two weeks. We had to go to the Gap and buy some extra clothes. And I bought socks because I heard all the workers at Ground Zero needed fresh socks constantly -- the mud and muck was soaking through everything.
I could not get back into the city. I could not look for a new job. I could barely speak to my friends. I watched the news constantly and I was horribly depressed. I was also terrified.
And now, I was facing a harsh reality. Which was that I had to move back to Los Angeles. New York held no opportunity for me in this time and I could not afford to wait for the economy to bounce back, for jobs to become available. I was losing my job with campus and as a consequence, my apartment, and I could not stay out on Long Island with my family forever - that was pointless. So I would have to get ON A PLANE.
We looked a trains first. The 9/11 planes were headed for LA and San Francisco and I was NOT going to get on a plane. But train fares had skyrocketed and I was finally pursuaded by heightened security measures that planes would be fine (and I would drug myself to make it easier, of course).
When I finally got back into the city, I was struck by the new view from my apartment. Where once I looked a mile and a half down, and the twin towers stood, there was now a gap and I could see straight out to the water. It was an intense moment.
We pakced quickly, shipped most of my things home in boxes, left many of my things to friends, and on October 7, 2001, I flew home to Los Angeles.
I took my first trip back to New York in the Spring of 2002. I would not go downtown. But one night, I was on a date (long story) and my thoughts got away from me. We were on the subway, heading to his place, and I was snapped back to reality when we climbed out of the Subway station and I found myself across the street from Ground Zero.
The smell was wretched. The air was thick. And I reached for his hand, holding it tightly, frozen otherwise with tears running down my cheeks.
I've been back to New York several times since but I have never been downtown since.
I'm sitting here, staring at my computer. I don't know what else to say... There was so much aftermath. I had NYU friend in LA, riddled with guilt they were not in New York when it all happened (a complicated feeling I totally understand). Old friends would tell me I should be proud to be part of history; to be able to say "I was there" as if it was a badge of accomplishment.
It is unavoidable: My life today would not be what it is without that day in history. I have been forced to consider, more often than I'd like, what might have been had that day never ocurred. And I don't mean to sound so shallow. CLEARLY, I did not suffer so much as a result of the attacks. People lost their lives, their families and friends, their health, their sanity. What I lost was veritable minutia by comparison. But it is unavoidable to think on such things, I suppose.
It's been ten years. I've moved twice, I've earned another dgree, I've had four different jobs in that time... In some ways I feel like 9/11 was a lifetime ago and in other ways, I feel like it was just last year.
REMEMBER. ALWAYS. Hug the ones you love.
August 1999. My first week living in New York, atop the Empire State Building,
Twin Towers in the distance.
