Five years ago, I was in my fifth day at a contract job in a government library. My co-workers and I barely knew each other. My husband called me to tell me that the first plane had hit the towers, and I immediately told everyone else, and we gathered around the TV in the library conference room to watch the news.
Soon thereafter the library director came in, and for whatever reason, looked to me for answers about what was happening. I've never understood why he did that. I'm not a leader, and he'd known all of the people in the room far longer than me.
We were sent home soon after, and the fear was just starting.
I walked 8 blocks to Hubby's office building, knowing that I wouldn't get in, but hoping I could convince the nervous guards to call him down so we could go. I've often wondered how close I came that morning to being arrested or shot.
Hubby and I walked to the Union Station metro to try and catch a train out of town. Cars were gridlocked everywhere. Everyone, me included, looked terrified. I've never been that scared in my life.
Until the next morning, 9/12. When we had to get up and take the subway to work, as if nothing had happened. This was a time when Hubby & I weren't commuting together. It would have been easier to get myself on a train with him along. I shook the whole way to work, terrified of what might happen on that train trip, or the one going home.
The memory of that fear wears thin after 5 years, but our politicians are doing their best to keep it alive in ways that I think are wildly inappropriate. But that's another post, for another day.
I lost nothing that day but some trust in the universe. I cannot imagine what this day feels like for those who suffered a real loss, who must live forever with the consequences of that day.
Never forget. And remember this, a quote from Ben Franklin, appropriate in these dark days:
They that can give up essential liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
