Dear Diary, September 12, 2001
Yesterday morning two airplanes were hijacked by terrorists and crashed into the World Trade Center. The twin towers were on fire and then later on collapsed. Thousands of New Yorkers working in those two skyline buildings are killed. Hundreds are filling up the tri-state area hospitals injured. Another plane also hijacked by terrorist suicide bombers crashed into the Pentagon and another crashed in Pennsylvania. All of New York City is in shock and dismay. People fear it may be an act of war from some foreign country. I am feeling pure rage and terror from this situation. I have heard of terrorist bombings and war in other countries before but as a teenager in the 21st century living in America and New York City of all places, never in my life have I thought we'd be under such great terrorist attack. I wonder as I sit and look out my window and am fortunate enough to see clear sky, smell fresh air, and hear the peaceful silence of an early fall night, is this over? Are we going to be subjected to further terrorist attacks? How are we as a state, as a country going to survive and have the strength to get through this? Times like this really give us a sort of reality check and make us realize that at any moment our freedom and happiness could be taken away from us by evil. It makes us realize what an unsafe, and corrupt evil world we really live in. Innocent people went about their lives, going to work as they would on any average day only to have their lives taken away by evil cowardly terrorists. This makes me wonder if we are safe anywhere. This makes me think about what's really important to me and who I truly care about. This is a pure example of how you don't realize what you've got till you've lost it. I can certainly relate that philosophy to my life...
Reflections 10 years later
This entry is entirely different than I remember it being. I remember writing about 9/11 on 9/11 not the next day. I remember writing this entry in more detail, about my day, about the details of how my day went. Like how I was in gym class, but the teacher was absent so for some reason they had us in the auditorium. Or maybe we were in the auditorium for an assembly so the teachers and principal can tells us what just happened. I remember hearing students a few seats over whispering something about planes, something about buildings, something about World Trade Centers. None of it made sense, so my 16 year old mind couldn't make sense of these rumors floating around. Finally we found out.
I remember not going to another class the rest of the day. I remember wandering the halls in a panic, unsure of where my dad worked, but only armed with the knowledge that he worked "in the city somewhere", I was certain he worked in the Financial District because after all he was a CPA, so where else would he work. I remember cursing my parents for not buying me a cell phone, because it's times like these that it would be oh so useful. I remember using a phone in my schools main office to try to call my dad and not getting through. I remember calling my grandma and speaking to her, both of us speaking quickly, happy to hear the other person was alright and unsure of what the hell was going on. I remember her telling me that no, my dad did not work near the World Trade Centers but a bit uptown from there, so he should be okay, but she hadn't heard from him yet.I remember my mom leaving work early at my old junior high school where she had started working the year before, to walk over to my high school to sign me out. I remember feeling strangely happy to see her and surprisingly unembarrassed that my mom was picking me up from school when I am 16. I remember walking out of the front of the building with my mom, and seeing Kira, my best friend who I was in a fight with and hadn't spoken to since the middle of the summer standing outside with her new friends who just so happened to be the bitchiest girls in school who made a part-time job out of making me feel miserable. She and I locked eyes but didn't say anything to each other. In that moment I wanted to run right over to her and hug her and forget all the reasons why we stopped talking in the first place, because none of it mattered when there were bombs and mass murder going on just a few miles away. I remember the long walk from Forest Hills High School to our apartment. All of Queens Blvd and Austin Street was deserted. A quiet and stillness permeated my neighborhood a neighborhood usually overwhelmed with cars, buses and pedestrians. Not one bus, not one car, not one person passed us by on our long walk home. When we got upstairs to our apartment, my mother and I, I looked out my bedroom window and half expected to see smoke and fire, and bombs going off outside. But nothing. Just quiet and eery stillness. There was no TV. The TV's weren't working that first day, at least when we came home, so I put on my headphones and turned on my discman and z100 my radio station of choice, which broadcasted from the Empire State Building was not playing music, instead just news. Just a constant flow of news coverage about the catastrophe. I remember when the TV's eventually came back on, every channel including MTV and VH1 played news. Replaying images of the planes striking the towers, the towers shaking and collapsing, sending smoke and toxic ash into the sky. People hurt and running and the police, firemen, and national guard at the scene. It felt like TV coverage would never end and when it did it was a relief, but it was also sad, because it was a part of history that I and the rest of the city was transfixed to not because it was on, but because it was the only thing we could do. Especially those that felt so stunned, so scared and so helpless by this unthinkable tragedy. On Sunday following September 11th, Kira called me to make up. I was so thankful she made the first move, so relieved to have her back in my life as a friend, and so happy to realize that in life love is the most important thing.
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