Walk On

12 years ago.

I cannot ignore that today is the anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks. No - it is not a nice memory but it is a memory that is seared into the minds of people all over the world.

I was 18 years old enjoying the first two weeks of my freshman year of college.  Oblivious to the world - oblivious to a lot of things.  I remember being in my robe and shower caddy in hand about to go down the hall to shower in the community bathroom when one of my newest friends came running into my room yelling "A plane hit one of the twin towers."  We called this kid OGB - Old Goofy Bastard.  Of course I assumed he was spouting nonsense -until I turned on the TV - and there it was.  Smoke billowing out of one the towers. 

My roommate, Tricia, was in class already and don't recall details of what happened next but next thing I knew she was back in our room and several of us from our floor were huddled around our little TV watching these historic events unfold..  Tricia and I were the two Long Island girls on our floor.  Lots of  Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont and New Hampshire people at our tiny college in Bristol, Rhode Island - but we were the NY girls.  I remember her and I frantically thinking about our family back in New York.  Her dad would go into Manhattan for work sometimes, my sister just started her first job out of college in Manhattan.  Both my parents worked at JFK airport for American Airlines.

I couldn't get in touch with anybody from my family.  That's when I really started to panic.  Was my sister okay?  Where was she exactly in the city?  Why aren't my parents answering their phone?  What the hell is going on in the world?  All of these questions racing through my brain - and there was nothing I could do but watch what was unfolding on the TV in front of me.

 
And before I knew it - the towers collapsed.

I eventually spoke to my parents in the evening - my sister got a train ride home that evening and no one I immediately knew had died in those attacks. 

12 years ago my world changed.  Our world changed.