This is a hard time of year to be on social media or to watch any TV. It started this week...the 20th Anniversary of 9/11. Every single year the going over of the horrendous day for the Country. The visual images on repeat. The collective pain. It is all too much for me, and I don't know how people who lost loved ones get through the day. Especially those that still to this day have not been able to "find" their loved one in the wreckage. No closure.
I won't be on socials tomorrow, I won't be watching the news. With the shit show that has been 2020-21 I just can't carry more pain, even old pain right now. It is just too much.
And yet, there are children and young people that have no idea what 9/11 was like. That to me is unfathomable. But I suppose that is how my grand parents felt about Pearl Harbor. But they always gave me a sense of what had happened. I paid attention. I listened. I learned. I hope for those coming behind us that they won't carry the deep pain, but will remember incident and what it means to our history and still to our future.
I was in the shower that morning when my boyfriend yelled at me to get out and come watch this, I knew from the sound of his voice it was bad, I didn't know how bad...the first tower was hit, and I saw the 2nd plane hit the 2nd tower. We both stood there in shock, I was shaking from being in a towel and wet and in horror. I was numb getting ready for work and don't even remember how I was able to drive there.
I remember going to work and telling my boss we should lock up because it was an act of war. He looked at me like I was crazy. I locked the door to our office...and a couple of hours later the City Manager contacted Department Heads to lock the City Buildings down, so then the entire building was on lock down and he was in the lobby to ask people coming in what their business was for that day. It was unnerving, and I don't think many of us got our work done with much cognition, we were all in shock and grief, and comforting one another.
It is not that I will not remember tomorrow. It is that I have to protect myself right now, I am too tender to bear it right now...the world is too heavy, we are no longer together as a Nation, we have been polarized since the 2016 election...getting worse every single year. And yet part of our problems came from the Patriot Act that George Bush Jr put through, Afghanistan that October and a 20 year war...and now having the region unstable again.
It is a layered grief...and still a layered fear of terrorism. Because it can happen again.
These photos are on the New Jersey side and the memorial of 9/11 from there facing New York and the new building replacing the 2 towers. And as we both stood there in silence, our memories went right back to the very day that it had happened. All I can tell you is, WGB and I both felt we were on sacred ground, all the feelings, the memories and just sending love to those families who lost someone on that day. Truly it is a moving memorial as you walk through slowly taking in everyone name and seeing the New York coast line as you walk out. It took my breathe away.
I watched the news, here in the UK, from my office. We had friends in NYC we lost work colleagues, I later went to work at another company that had offices in the towers, stories I was told of the loss to them personally and economically. Even here in the UK we felt it. I visited NYC in 2015 I visited the site. I remembered. I was in mourning myself and my personal was so so heavy, adding the heaviness of the site was too much, it spiraled me. I get what you are saying. take care of yourself, do what you need to do. tomorrow will be another day.
Posted by: Donna | Saturday, September 11, 2021 at 12:48 AM
Sending you big gentle hugs.
This day is a rough one for me too.
I still can't watch a documentary of that day. Looking at photos is hard enough.
Do what you gotta do, take care of yourself, shield yourself in what ever ways feel right. I know I will probably be doing the same.
Posted by: Lisa | Saturday, September 11, 2021 at 12:07 PM
It is a layered grief, you are right. It is complicated and so heavy. And the fact that our country is in even worse shape now makes it even harder somehow. Hugs to you. Hugs to all of us.
Posted by: Amy | Saturday, September 11, 2021 at 01:40 PM
We are all feeling it one way or the other. Yes hugs to you, to all of us, our country and our world.
Posted by: Jean | Saturday, September 11, 2021 at 02:53 PM