I reread all of my previous 9/11 blog entries this morning, and through them I realized how much of a journey I’ve taken in these past six years, from completely raw and emotionally bleeding to today, when I’ve shed a few tears, but have been able to deal rather well on the whole. (The fact that it’s raining helps a great deal on the first anniversary to actually fall on a Tuesday. If there was a blue, sunny sky, I might not be dealing so well.)
I wonder how much of it is that I was so, so young when 9/11 happened. That seems odd to say, since I’m not that old now, but 23 seems a lifetime ago to me, probably because of all the growing up the attacks forced me to do. I do see 9/11 as a defining moment in my life, a day when a lot of my innocence was stripped from me as we watched the planes hit, the Towers collapse, and waited to hear from all of my friends, many of whom were around the World Trade Center that day for one reason or another. Six years isn’t that long in the span of a human life, but in the aftermath of a traumatic event, it seems like forever. And at some moments, no time at all.
I’ve gotten used to politicians using my pain and the pain of everyone else who experienced it, lost a loved one, still has nightmares about it, etc. for their gain. I’ve become almost numb to it, because if I think about it too much, I will rip off their fucking heads and shit down their throats. (Yeah, I still have a lot of rage from that day as well.) But I am still not ready to relive it, which is the theme of the day. When I saw that MSNBC was going to be re-broadcasting the Today show from September 11, 2001, I almost threw up. They were billing it as “living history” or some such shit, and all I could think was “It’s not far enough removed to be history yet. It’s still personal.” It’s bad enough to watch video clips of the planes hitting the Towers, but to relive it? No thank you. It’s like taking hold of someone else’s half-healed scab and just yanking it off.
Since TV is obviously not safe to watch today, Julie will go home and spend the evening with a bit of wine, some Rock Hudson/Doris Day movies, and the spinning wheel, and leave my thin scab where it is. I’ll leave off with a video for the song that I will forever associate with the aftermath of September 11, since the classic rock radio station I listen to played it so often. This song has done more to heal me since that day than any other piece of music, and that’s saying something, since I relied heavily on music to get me through everything. John Lennon’s “Imagine.” Thank you, John.