September 11th 2001......

It is hard to believe that 25 years have gone by since that fate filled day......As I think back on that, it was a day that changed the trajectory of the world......similar to the pandemic, even though so different, but shifting the world from one place to another for sure....with the bridge in between burned, and with no way back to the old.....I was teaching that morning.....in another place......freshly out of college, and just beginning, and we had a morning news station that broadcasted through the school, and we were watching it on the TV and doing the pledge.....and then it became clear something was horridly wrong....and during my prep I went to the office and they had a TV set up as everybody watched in horror as the tears streamed....and I remember that day like it just happened for the most part.....I remember being just heartbroken and it all hit me like a ton of bricks.....learning the stories of the people that lived in that day by the World Trade Center......and the Pentagon.......and the flight that crashed in PA......the heroes and heroines that stepped up that day......the people that somehow were spared as fate stepped in, against all odds......I was so fascinated and devastated by it all......and I do not believe the world has the real story behind the "why"......of that day.....the story that runs underneath what we witnessed......and likely it would be hard to even understand as it was one of the most heinous acts ever........I remember the next day trying to process it with my class of 4th graders and struggling to get the words out or make sense of all of it, crying through most of what I said to them, and I remember that I met with my then boyfriend, at the Milford Diner after work on September 11th and tried to eat dinner......but we both sat in horror and sadness......and actually as I write this, a thought I had never connected before is that my crippling bout with anxiety began soon after Sept 11th.......I never linked the two things.......but perhaps they were connected.....I mean for sure the world no longer felt safe at all....but that would have right around all the time all of it really kicked off, and it catapulted my life into a new direction........I was reading some stories last night, and this morning that I had never heard....touched by the stories still so deeply all of these years later......And I will never forget that day or the amazing humans that lived in that day, and sacrificed it all in the aftermath to put it all back together......as best they could......and I suppose what becomes captivating about it.....is that it showed the absolute worst in humanity and the absolute best......all at the same time......I often talk of the duality that lives in all things.....and I believe September 11th is one of those things........the light and dark having its say so fully.....so today I write this to honor the people that lost their lives that day.....the heartache that their surviving family endured.......the volunteers, police and firemen that put NYC back together, and the countless other people's this story affected for all of their lives.......may we never forget, never........Amen xoxo