2 Cauac & 9/11

12.19.12.11.19 2 Cauac 17 Chen

Ah, 2 Cauac-gentle rain. Supposed to be blessings and gifts from above, but today it's just making me feel sad. For some reason on the way to work I was thinking about 9/11. I guess I'll tell my story of "where I was" since for whatever reason it's right at the front of my mind today.

I was at work, in my cube, when one of the engineers came by to say a plane had hit the World Trade Center. It was right around 9:00 a.m. We just all thought it was a terrible accident. I remember trying to log onto CNN.com or any news site and not being able to due to high traffic, and finally installing AOL against all company rules and using their news, only to find that a 2nd plane had hit and then it was clear that this was not an accident, it was an attack. I don't remember how much later we heard about the other 2 planes. I know by 10:30 the whole company (over 100 people) was in the cafeteria. The security officer had dragged in a TV and everyone watched the first tower fall live on TV. My boss, a big burly guy, was crying. It was awful. I went back to my cube and was emailing my vendors. One of the vendors, in Massachusetts, had another branch in Long Island and the people in LI were in their parking lot watching the towers burn. I don't remember the rest of the day at work. I know nobody did any work. Our vendors weren't working and neither were our customers. A lot of people just went home. It was a Tuesday, which was when my husband gamed (played AD&D) with his friends out in the garage. I sat inside, glued to CNN, watching that damn plane hit the tower over and over, watching the footage of people jumping from the windows so they didn't burn to death, watching the towers fall, watching the Pentagon burn, until I had worked myself into hysterics. I was making dream catchers and I looked down at them and said "I can't sell these, what kind of energy am I putting into them?" That was when I became a CNN.com addict (I still go there at least once a day).

I did not watch any of the shows that were on a few weeks ago. I feel like it's too soon. I didn't know anyone who died there (but I know people who knew people) and I still feel it's too soon. I know the media swore they would never show that horrible footage again, and I know that's a lie. I never want to see it again. I can't imagine how those people who lost family members must feel. I read an interview with a girl whose father died in the towers, and she said watching the plane hit the towers for her was seeing her father die over and over on TV and that she couldn't read anything, couldn't watch TV, without seeing her dad die.

What a depressing post. I'm sorry. But I needed to get it out of me.

The big question isn't, did Bin Laden do this? or did Saddam Hussien do this? But does it give us the right to go to Iraq and kill people? Aren't we sinking to their level? Aren't we proving their point on how horrible America is, and how we think we're the greatest?

I guess I got to this point because I was thinking how you never know when it's the last time you'll see someone. A good friend of mine has a husband in the Army and she's pretty sure that after he gets elevated to Major next year he's getting deployed, and she has no idea where she'll be living when that happens. I saw her in August, but I might never see her again--his next post probably won't be within easy driving distance. I hate that we have to be the world police.