9/11: What It Means To Me.
Some of you know this. Some of you don't. I was there.
There = across the street from the World Trade Center on 9/11 and seeing the 2nd plane come in sideways to crash into the tower.
I don't particularly like talking about it, and I go out of my way to avoid news coverage. I don't need to see what happened in 9/11. I know it and feel it every day. Yes, every day. It is now a part of me, whether I want it there or not. I know families were torn apart by this.
When that plane hit, I went into shock and had to literally be told by a colleague to evacuate because I was so stunned by what I just witnessed. Someone said we were under attack. I honestly didn't believe it.
I evacuated to someone's apartment close by and then we watched people starting to run like it was a movie, except it wasn't. That was the 1st tower going down. So we evacuated again. Cell phones not working. Trying to track down my folks. Walking up the West Side Highway to my place in the West Village.
You have to understand that for the folks in NYC -- we had no clue about Shanksville, the Pentagon, etc. Nothing. So it was a very confusing time in trying to piece things together. It wasn't until a couple of hours later when a bunch of my colleagues and I were back at my apartment, and we saw on TV what was taking place. Then it was literally going through my Palm Pilot and seeing who would possibly be down in that area that morning.
A few hours later, I heard some really loud engines which sounded similar to the sound I heard before the 2nd plane hit. I thought we were getting attacked again. Turns out it was the military doing flyovers over NYC. It took years for me to get used to the Blue Angels doing their shows out here without freaking out because the sounds were similar.
I was so thankful to get called back to work because I didn't know what to do. I was watching endless news coverage, which probably wasn't very helpful. I couldn't sleep. I had nightmares. In this rare situation, work saved me for the time being.
In the weeks and months following 9/11, I saw the makeshift memorials, missing person ads, etc., and they made me feel worse to put it mildly.
About 2-3 months after, Merrill Lynch restored our e-mails from that day before the server went down. I was at work when these e-mails started coming in and I literally got physically sick. I had sent out my annual JDRF e-mail the day before and people started using it as a way to track me down because people didn't know the difference between the World Trade Center and the World Financial Center. There were about 50 e-mails flying back and forth that re-lived that very morning as news unfolded. No one knew where I was.
I am so thankful Marc didn't have to go through that. Not that I take any relief from the people in my life who did. We met about 10 months after 9/11.
I knew people who were killed and lost someone who was a good friend. When I think of Vinnie, who lost his life at the age of 25 because of same cowardly bastards, it hurts. It doesn't go away. Ever. It doesn't just appear once a year. And people died after 9/11 who were victims of that attack. You just don't hear about them as much. But they are there.
9/11 is a very conflicting day for me because it changed my life.... for the worse and for the better. It made me truly re-evaluate. I would never wish it to happen again, but it did and fortunately I had some sense to do something with that experience.
My life is so much better than it was 10 years ago. I am thankful for that. I can't imagine my life being better than it is right now. Marc is a huge part of that. But while I avoid news coverage, I live life on my terms and don't settle. I did that before and probably do it even more now, particularly with certain people who used to be friends. Why bother?
But telling folks to remember what happened on that day is really lost on me because I live with it everyday, just like so many others who were there with me. Just like the teachers who had to keep their students calm because their parents might have been victims. Just like the police, fire and EMT teams that went in. So many scenarios of people who were truly personally impacted. The random events that enabled people to be late to work and survive the attack.
Everyone has their own story. This is mine. Thanks for reading.
RIP Vinnie Bag O' Doughnuts.
There = across the street from the World Trade Center on 9/11 and seeing the 2nd plane come in sideways to crash into the tower.
I don't particularly like talking about it, and I go out of my way to avoid news coverage. I don't need to see what happened in 9/11. I know it and feel it every day. Yes, every day. It is now a part of me, whether I want it there or not. I know families were torn apart by this.
When that plane hit, I went into shock and had to literally be told by a colleague to evacuate because I was so stunned by what I just witnessed. Someone said we were under attack. I honestly didn't believe it.
I evacuated to someone's apartment close by and then we watched people starting to run like it was a movie, except it wasn't. That was the 1st tower going down. So we evacuated again. Cell phones not working. Trying to track down my folks. Walking up the West Side Highway to my place in the West Village.
You have to understand that for the folks in NYC -- we had no clue about Shanksville, the Pentagon, etc. Nothing. So it was a very confusing time in trying to piece things together. It wasn't until a couple of hours later when a bunch of my colleagues and I were back at my apartment, and we saw on TV what was taking place. Then it was literally going through my Palm Pilot and seeing who would possibly be down in that area that morning.
A few hours later, I heard some really loud engines which sounded similar to the sound I heard before the 2nd plane hit. I thought we were getting attacked again. Turns out it was the military doing flyovers over NYC. It took years for me to get used to the Blue Angels doing their shows out here without freaking out because the sounds were similar.
I was so thankful to get called back to work because I didn't know what to do. I was watching endless news coverage, which probably wasn't very helpful. I couldn't sleep. I had nightmares. In this rare situation, work saved me for the time being.
In the weeks and months following 9/11, I saw the makeshift memorials, missing person ads, etc., and they made me feel worse to put it mildly.
About 2-3 months after, Merrill Lynch restored our e-mails from that day before the server went down. I was at work when these e-mails started coming in and I literally got physically sick. I had sent out my annual JDRF e-mail the day before and people started using it as a way to track me down because people didn't know the difference between the World Trade Center and the World Financial Center. There were about 50 e-mails flying back and forth that re-lived that very morning as news unfolded. No one knew where I was.
I am so thankful Marc didn't have to go through that. Not that I take any relief from the people in my life who did. We met about 10 months after 9/11.
I knew people who were killed and lost someone who was a good friend. When I think of Vinnie, who lost his life at the age of 25 because of same cowardly bastards, it hurts. It doesn't go away. Ever. It doesn't just appear once a year. And people died after 9/11 who were victims of that attack. You just don't hear about them as much. But they are there.
9/11 is a very conflicting day for me because it changed my life.... for the worse and for the better. It made me truly re-evaluate. I would never wish it to happen again, but it did and fortunately I had some sense to do something with that experience.
My life is so much better than it was 10 years ago. I am thankful for that. I can't imagine my life being better than it is right now. Marc is a huge part of that. But while I avoid news coverage, I live life on my terms and don't settle. I did that before and probably do it even more now, particularly with certain people who used to be friends. Why bother?
But telling folks to remember what happened on that day is really lost on me because I live with it everyday, just like so many others who were there with me. Just like the teachers who had to keep their students calm because their parents might have been victims. Just like the police, fire and EMT teams that went in. So many scenarios of people who were truly personally impacted. The random events that enabled people to be late to work and survive the attack.
Everyone has their own story. This is mine. Thanks for reading.
RIP Vinnie Bag O' Doughnuts.