Blog: 9/11/08
I woke up this morning and was brutally reminded that I am in upstate New York. After attempting to walk to Dana with shorts and flip flops on, I realized now that I can no longer walk around like I do on the boardwalk down the shore. (yes, in New Jersey) Well anyway, time to break out the socks, boots, long sleeve shirts and fleeces. After checking my email account this morning and reading about the community service events on campus, and the poetry readings about peace and hope, I have also realized that there is a method to the madness of this world. Today is September 11, and although I was never personally affected in any way from the attacks, my memory scrambled back to that day. I live in a working-class town in New Jersey that is about 15 miles outside of Manhattan. So if you can imagine, a lot of the economy revolves around jobs that are provided in NYC. I went to a regional public elementary and high school that included four towns in the county I lived in. In 7th grade, I could never have grasped the capacity of the news when the principal came on the speaker and made us aware of the planes that “crashed into the twin towers,” so I kept on chit-chatting with my friends during art class. It was only when the principal was frantically calling down children to the office to be picked up to go home that I realized this was something more serious than I originally thought. Because I have no immediate family that worked in the World Trade Centers, my mother decided to keep me in school. After taking the school bus home from school that day, my mother urgently rushed us into the car and drove up to one of the streets in our town that has magnificent views of the NYC skylines. Looking upset and in denial, she sat us down as we witnessed the aftermath of the attacks on the twin towers. Two huge masses of black smoke were rushing up into the sky as helicopters and planes crowded the sky hoping to deter any future attacks that could’ve taken place. Because I had witnessed the physical effects of the world trade center attacks before viewing it on the television, I feel that I had more of a personal impact of the event. Although it has been 7 years today since the attack, it only seems that time has been the healing factor for many who have lost loved ones in the attack or the Iraq war. Thinking about the current state of affairs in America today really has humbled my thoughts about the minute and bothersome details of my life that bother me, such as not preparing for the chilly weather, or losing my campus id card. Things that really don’t matter.