where were you?

on 9/11/01 i was sitting in history class. it was my first semester of college and only my 2nd month being out of my mom's house. one of the professors came in and asked to speak w/ my history teacher. they walked out in the hall and when she came back she said she had some news but she was going to finish whatever she was talking about and then tell us. she finished and said a plane had hit the world trade center and school was being cancelled for the rest of the day. honestly, not being a travelled person, not being a history or geography person, i had NO clue what the trade center was. i just knew it had been hit. so i called my mom from the pay phone (don't know where my cell was) and she was in a panic. so i went back to my apartment and turned on the tv and saw the towers burning. it wasn't too much longer and they fell. it was hard to watch knowing people were dying and there was nothing anyone could do. that afternoon my husband (then boyfriend) came over after work. he had to leave to go back homee for some reason andi was scared to death so me and my fish went to my mom's house and stayed the night. i had gotten gas earlier that day and thank God b/c the pumps were backed up many many cars deep.

the only thing i remember about the days following is nonstop television. i couldn't tear my eyes away from all of it. i finally just had to cut the tv off. i already had anxiety issues and it made it so much worse. i still have all of the newspapers, magazines, internet articles, etc. that i collected in the weeks after the attacks.

i don't typically watch the stuff that plays on tv all the time about it (now). the documentary stuff is interesting but it just reminds me of all the pain i felt for those families. however, last week i watched a nat'l geographic documentary called Witness 9/11. it is about 6 people who were in manhattan or nj that day and had their own cameras. i saw footage that i had never seen but also footage that disturbed me more than the news documentaries do. one of the guys asked "is it september 12th?" that just amazed me b/c 9/11 is such an infamous day. it is just automatic, but that day it wasn't. that day was just another day for every single one of those innocent people. i wake up most days and think "what day is it?"