9/11

Was watching some of the coverage tonight about 9/11 five years later. At one point there was a short piece asking, "where were you when it happened?" We'll all remember that. Just like those of us old enough will remember where we were when hearing about president Kennedy's assasination. I can still see the image from my first grade desk in the middle of the room, looking up the row of other students in front of me to where our beloved teacher, Miss Nelson, put her head on her desk and started crying after the announcement from the principal came over the PA speaker behind her. Five years ago this morning I was driving to my teaching job at the college and heard the first report on my car radio. I thought of the image of the B-25 that crashed into and lodged in a high floor of the Empire State Building during WWII and thought it curious that it had happened again in New York. But when I got to the school I was able to get near a TV and saw the second tower hit and saw them fall. I knew the world would never be the same. And it certainly hasn't been. Almost nothing in my world is the same as it was then. The seismic changes seemed to keep happening on the comparatively tiny scale of my personal life. So much loss. Because of what happened five years ago, a lot of people are crawling into their beds alone tonight. It has nothing to do with 9/11, but I'm about to as well. So much pain every night.