9/11

Well, today is the 6 year anniversary of 9/11. I usually write a little something every year on this day because it was a day that changed the lives of many, including myself.

On 9/11/01, I had been living in California for less than a month. At the time, I was living in Angelus Oaks (up in the mountains) with my ex (who was not my ex at the time, of course). He left that morning to go to work, and I had the day off. It was a scary day, as I spent the entire day alone. We didn't have TV, so I heard about the tragedy on the Net. For the rest of the day, I was fully conscious of how quiet it was. That is the main thing I remember: the silence.

Eventually I internalized the silence. 9/11 helped me grow up in a way. It pushed me out of my utter self-centeredness and showed me a world where everyone suffered, not just me. For so long I had been the center of my own universe, and my suffering was paramount. On that day, I realized that no matter how I had suffered (and I had, for sure), I had never had to pick whether or not I should jump out a window or just let the roof collapse on my head. I had been faced with hard choices before, but they were real choices. So many victims of 9/11 had the choice of death or death. In other words, they had no choice at all.

As if that wasn't/isn't tragic enough, the war in Iraq is still going on. Talk about a tragedy. This is a war that will never be won. Our ideologies are just too different. And people continue to die for this cause. It is, quite simply, horrible.

My thoughts go out to those who have lost loved ones due to 9/11 or the war in Iraq.