2002-09-11

 

I'm going to just get this over with. I have a ton of stuff to do, but until I just let all this out, I don't know that I'll be worth much. Last year. This day seems so clear in my mind. I still worked at home, but I was supposed to be at the office for a 9:00 meeting of some sort. I was kind of dragging, actually. Finally was getting my stuff gathered up to get out the door, and I get a frantic call from Kimmy. "Are you still home? Turn on CNN! There was a plane wreck in NYC!" We still thought that it had been some sort of terrible plane crash then, just a devastating accident. We watched together for a while, then I bowed out... I had to get to work; I had to make that meeting. Left the TV on while I got my stuff together... and the second plane came in. Kimmy called me right back, and we just watched the replays in horror. What the hell had happened? And yet, it nagged at me... must get into the office. I couldn't watch it any more. I left the house, and got into some of the worst traffic on 635 of all time. Sitting at a dead stop at 635 and Greenville, I got a call from Molly - "Get out of the house! They still have planes in the air, and if they hit Dallas, TI is the place to hit. It would cause a huge explosion. Get out of the house!" I looked over to my right. There's the TI building. "Well, if I'm going to get blown up, it will be in traffic. Nothing I can do about it." At that point, I was already pretty emotionally exhausted. The thought of being blown up in my car was so unfamiliar I couldn't make room for it. Finally made it through some of the traffic, and I hear on NPR that a plane has just hit the Pentagon. Now for a call from my sister, who had just heard the same thing en route to school. "Why the fuck do we even have the CIA? What the hell are they doing? How is this happening? Are those dumb fucks just sitting on their asses? Arrrggghhhh!!!" Despite the horror of the situation, I still snicker when I remember that phone call. Then came the threats of car bombs at the State Department, of an unknown quantity of hijacked planes still out there. Around the time I made it into work, the towers were falling. I couldn't think, I couldn't breathe. We all just stayed, gathered around our radios, not working. I left the office early - around 3 or so - went home. Took a long hot shower. Waited for Stephen to come home. And when he did, I just held him and cried. The next day was MoMo's birthday, which everyone seems to have forgot. I feel pretty bad about that now. I'm making an extra concerted effort to not forget it again. Some friends from work were married in Jamaica that day, and didn't know that their ceremony approximately coincided with the awful events. Maybe now I can get some work done.

posted by bethanye 9:31:00 AM