Wow, thinking your building could be a potential target really brings it home Mema! I felt safe that nothing in WI would be a target, yet felt fear from the uncertainty of it all. Especially once they talked about there being an unaccounted for plane still in the sky.
The whole day just seemed so weird. I had set my alarm clock that day which I NEVER, EVER, EVER do. I have been fortunate enough for the last nine years to get up when I want to get up.
But a radio personality had just moved from NY to MIL and his first broadcast was to be that Tuesday. I wanted to hear his show. So when the clock went off I did hear him, saying a small plane had hit the trade center.
I went downstairs, turned on the TV, saw the smoking hole. The announcers seemed to think it was an accident, a small plane crashed into the tower. But again, for some reason I felt the need to put in a VHS tape and record the news while I ran my dogs out to pee (I had two new puppies at the time).
When I came back in it turned out I was recording history.
I watched the TV from the moment I woke up until the moment JD & our other friends arrived at my house that night.
It was really creepy. No escaping it even at home. I lived like 4 blocks away from the back up air traffic control center for KCI. I had to divert my normal driving path to and from my house because they put up barracades to block off the street that ran in front of the building to prevent anyone from getting close with a car bomb.
I felt oddly safe at work, but perpetually reminded. Not just because of working on the phone service for that specific area, but I had a window cubicle on the 6th floor of a 10 floor building. Perfect vanage point for watching the aircraft circling the area and the figher planes coming and going from the airbase my mom lives by just over the state line in Missouri.
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MM
That which does not kill me postpones the inevitable.
They gounded all commercial flights that day. George Bush Senior's plane was diverted to MIlwaukee. Our local news caught up with him on the golf course with his wife Barbara.
I'm like Woo, an emotional sponge. But I'm really bad at bottling it in. It's like I try to absorb everyone else's bad feelings and take the burden on myself.
I think after years of doing that, it's really getting to me. Some days are better than others, and today was a bad mood day before I even acknowledged the date.
So I can't watch it anymore. It's not that I'm trying to forget it, I want those people's memories preserved. It's that my bottle is full, and I just can't deal with more of those feelings right now.
I remember exactly what I was doing on 9/11; I had just dropped my girls off at school, was on my way home when the radio station I was listening to broke in and said a plane had hit one of the WT towers. At first I thought it was an aviation accident. I got home, turned on the tv, and saw the second plane hit the other tower. I sat there, completely numb, wondering what the hell was going on. Then the third plane crashed into the Pentagon. My granny called, asked me if I was watching tv......we couldn't believe what we were seeing. During our conversation was when the towers collapsed. I was in shock, my granny was crying, asking me what in the world was happening. My call waiting broke in; it was my dad calling to see if I was watching tv....he said our country was under attack. I went and picked up my granny and we went to my dad's for the afternoon. When I picked up my girls from school, both knew what had happened and they had lots of questions that I wasn't able to fully answer. I remember they cried and cried on the way home from school. I didn't watch any more of the coverage until later that night after my girls went to bed.
At work this morning, we observed a few moments of silence at the exact time that the planes struck back on '01. It's still an emotionally charged day 7 years later.
