Athena-Nadine
September 7th, 2004, 02:43 PM
WARNING: If you don't want to read another thread about September 11th, you won't want to read this one.
Yes, it's that time of year again. Over the next week or so, there will probably be a few more threads about September 11th. The two threads from this morning got me thinking about this again. Actually, I began thinking about this again last week when I realized how deep the pain still goes from that day.
Some people need to forget to heal. Some people need to look back and remember. Some people will grieve and let it go. Some people will grieve, go on with their lives, be happy, but will not ever be able to let it go. Some people will live happily, but will grieve forever.
Yes, it was a horrible tragedy. It's a terrible thing that so many innocent people were attacked, that so many were killed, for no reason other than the fact that they lived and went to work in the United States. Yet for some of us, the hurt from September 11th is a bit different. For some of us, it is deeply personal. No matter how happy I am, I will always grieve deep in my heart. No matter where life takes me, I will never be able to forget.
I'm feeling guilty for not being able to go back home to NYC this year. I just don't feel right being in Colorado during September 11th, but it's not possible for me to make it home right now. *...shakes head...* It goes hand in hand with the guilt I've carried since I moved here in December 2001. I've never completely gotten over the feeling that I abandoned my city, iraational though it is. So I decided to post this. I can't physically be home this year, but part of my heart is always there.
When I was a little girl, I often felt isolated from others. That feeling is something I've never quite been able to get rid of, though I know I'm not alone--not really, not anymore. My mother was too young for children when I was born. My father was an alcoholic. By the time I was six, there were four of us, with me as the oldest (now there are five--my baby brother was born less than a month before my fourteenth birthday). By that time, my mother was only twenty-two, and my father was thirty-four. My father worked full-time, and went out at night, so we barely saw him, except when he came home drunk and woke us all up with his screaming. When I was six, I saw him hit my mother for the first time.
I was always sent to the After School Center during the week, as my mother was in college then. I was an extremely shy child, and rarely played with any of the other children. Back then, I used to sit on a window sill and watch the world go by. I used to sit there, looking up at the Manhattan Skyline, dreaming of the day I could leave all the pain and go there. From my school in Brooklyn, the buildings always looked so clean, and so bright. There always seemed to be such promise in that tiny island across the river. And sitting there, sad, hurting, and lonely, those buildings became my friends. I sat at that window, day after day, and told those buildings everything. There was nothing about me they didn't know.
The Twin Towers. They were so big to a tiny, lost, six-year-old girl (they were just as big to the woman I became). They stood there, stretching to the sky. To me, they seemed to carry all my hopes and dreams up with them. They never berated me, never judged me, never taunted me. They just stood there, silent sentinals. The were the only solid, stable things in my young life. As a child, I used to imagine they watched over me, and kept me safe. When I would sit at that window, visiting them, for that little while, I was free of the pain and fear I knew all too well at home. Even as I became older, even as I began to figure out who I was, and began to love myself in spite of my upbringing, I still paid my respects to those buildings every time I looked up from wherever I was and saw them standing there, guarding the dreams of who knows how many?
When those buildings were destroyed, more than my cousin was taken down with them. More than two of my closest friends died with them. More than my body was wounded as they fell around me. The horror of the people I, and so many others, lost that day wounded me deeply. The pain of three months' illness, and the cracking of my ribs from coughing, still returns to haunt me occasionally when the weather is too cold and dry. Yet beyond all that, for me there was a deeper loss. When those buildings were so mercilessly torn down, the six-year-old, wide-eyed, hopeful little girl I was went with them.
The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City opened in 1973, the year I was born. Until September 11, 2001, they stood and watched over me my entire life. They shared every event of any consequence I ever lived through. And that day, I could do nothing but stand on the street and watch them go down, breathing in their last breath as they fell, taking my heart with them.
Some days I wish I could have had the luxury of being one of the billions who saw it happen on television, but those thoughts leave almost as soon as they come. Those buildings watched me grow. They shared my joys, my sorrows, my pain, everything. As much as I often wish I didn't have to live through their death, I am grateful that I could be with them in their last moments, as they were so often there for me.
Yes, it's that time of year again. Over the next week or so, there will probably be a few more threads about September 11th. The two threads from this morning got me thinking about this again. Actually, I began thinking about this again last week when I realized how deep the pain still goes from that day.
Some people need to forget to heal. Some people need to look back and remember. Some people will grieve and let it go. Some people will grieve, go on with their lives, be happy, but will not ever be able to let it go. Some people will live happily, but will grieve forever.
Yes, it was a horrible tragedy. It's a terrible thing that so many innocent people were attacked, that so many were killed, for no reason other than the fact that they lived and went to work in the United States. Yet for some of us, the hurt from September 11th is a bit different. For some of us, it is deeply personal. No matter how happy I am, I will always grieve deep in my heart. No matter where life takes me, I will never be able to forget.
I'm feeling guilty for not being able to go back home to NYC this year. I just don't feel right being in Colorado during September 11th, but it's not possible for me to make it home right now. *...shakes head...* It goes hand in hand with the guilt I've carried since I moved here in December 2001. I've never completely gotten over the feeling that I abandoned my city, iraational though it is. So I decided to post this. I can't physically be home this year, but part of my heart is always there.
When I was a little girl, I often felt isolated from others. That feeling is something I've never quite been able to get rid of, though I know I'm not alone--not really, not anymore. My mother was too young for children when I was born. My father was an alcoholic. By the time I was six, there were four of us, with me as the oldest (now there are five--my baby brother was born less than a month before my fourteenth birthday). By that time, my mother was only twenty-two, and my father was thirty-four. My father worked full-time, and went out at night, so we barely saw him, except when he came home drunk and woke us all up with his screaming. When I was six, I saw him hit my mother for the first time.
I was always sent to the After School Center during the week, as my mother was in college then. I was an extremely shy child, and rarely played with any of the other children. Back then, I used to sit on a window sill and watch the world go by. I used to sit there, looking up at the Manhattan Skyline, dreaming of the day I could leave all the pain and go there. From my school in Brooklyn, the buildings always looked so clean, and so bright. There always seemed to be such promise in that tiny island across the river. And sitting there, sad, hurting, and lonely, those buildings became my friends. I sat at that window, day after day, and told those buildings everything. There was nothing about me they didn't know.
The Twin Towers. They were so big to a tiny, lost, six-year-old girl (they were just as big to the woman I became). They stood there, stretching to the sky. To me, they seemed to carry all my hopes and dreams up with them. They never berated me, never judged me, never taunted me. They just stood there, silent sentinals. The were the only solid, stable things in my young life. As a child, I used to imagine they watched over me, and kept me safe. When I would sit at that window, visiting them, for that little while, I was free of the pain and fear I knew all too well at home. Even as I became older, even as I began to figure out who I was, and began to love myself in spite of my upbringing, I still paid my respects to those buildings every time I looked up from wherever I was and saw them standing there, guarding the dreams of who knows how many?
When those buildings were destroyed, more than my cousin was taken down with them. More than two of my closest friends died with them. More than my body was wounded as they fell around me. The horror of the people I, and so many others, lost that day wounded me deeply. The pain of three months' illness, and the cracking of my ribs from coughing, still returns to haunt me occasionally when the weather is too cold and dry. Yet beyond all that, for me there was a deeper loss. When those buildings were so mercilessly torn down, the six-year-old, wide-eyed, hopeful little girl I was went with them.
The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City opened in 1973, the year I was born. Until September 11, 2001, they stood and watched over me my entire life. They shared every event of any consequence I ever lived through. And that day, I could do nothing but stand on the street and watch them go down, breathing in their last breath as they fell, taking my heart with them.
Some days I wish I could have had the luxury of being one of the billions who saw it happen on television, but those thoughts leave almost as soon as they come. Those buildings watched me grow. They shared my joys, my sorrows, my pain, everything. As much as I often wish I didn't have to live through their death, I am grateful that I could be with them in their last moments, as they were so often there for me.