19 years ago today, ~3000 people were killed, including a friend of mine, and many more have passed away since as a result of what happened at the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and in Shanksville, PA.
I was there and maybe some of you were as well. Below is my story from a year later after the attacks. The last paragraph obviously resonates a bit differently than in previous years given today’s circumstances with COVID and the events of 2020 in general. But the last 3 sentences still apply.
9/11 - A Year Later (9/11/02)
Many of you have been e-mailing or calling to see how I am doing today. I am grateful for your concern. I started typing something up for myself, but figured maybe it might be more therapeutic (and easier) for me to share this with you.
Well some days you just wake up and don't know what to think. This is one of those days. I decided not to go into work because I felt as if I would be re-tracing every step that I took that day and to be in the actual place where I saw it all happen was going to be too much for me today. But even with not being in the office, I still am re-tracing my steps at various points throughout that day, which included seeing the 2nd plane hit one of the towers and then watching that same tower fall to the ground not long after.
I also remember how happy was a few days earlier celebrating a big milestone. I was surrounded by close friends at Artisanal and spent the day with my folks at the US Open on a gorgeous day. I thought to myself that life was good. I spent the next day with my family at Luger's and continued to think life was good. After 9/11/01, I remember thinking how grateful I was that I was smart enough to know how good I had it (and still do).
Part of me still feels like it's not possible that this could have happened. Like it does not seem real even though I know it's real every day I go to work. The whole thing just seems so unfathomable - even a year later. I think a lot of us are just checking up on each other - many of my friends work on Wall Street, so many of us just remember what it was like to be "there" in addition to the loss of any family and/or friends. I'll never forget the fear that my family and my friends had when no one knew where I was for about 3-4 hours, and how panicked people sounded on my voice mail or on my hotmail account. I remember spending most of the next 24-48 hours responding to people as much as I could because they did not even know the difference between the WTC and the WFC. I was so exhausted and I think it took weeks for me to get back on regular sleeping pattern. I had to stop watching the news because the images on screen were being replaced with the ones I saw with my own eyes.
At the time I was living in the Village, you looked downtown and you just saw tragedy and despair - and that is an under-rated description. You knew it was a beautiful day, but you couldn't see it because all you saw was smoke. You looked uptown and the city looked as defiant as ever. We had an extraordinary run of good weather in the following weeks and when you looked in the direction of the Empire State Building, you never would have known what happened. Seeing the walls of missing people ads was gut-wrenching. Most of the pictures had the missing person with a child, grandchild or spouse/partner. I cannot imagine the anguish of those families.
In the months following 9/11/01, my company laid off 10,000 people. The rumors lingered for about 2.5 months, which made an already bad situation worse. A strong chance existed that I would be one of them. I was not, but good friends of mine were. Working in an office that overlooked Ground Zero recovery efforts was difficult to put it mildly. Smelling the burning was not only unhealthy physically, but mentally and emotionally. And then they restored work emails from the morning of 9/11 on a random day 2+ months later. Reading everyone being panicked about my whereabouts on 9/11 literally made me puke into the garbage pail next to my desk. Yeah, the suit I was wearing that day went into the trash. Didn't need the reminder.
When 2001 ended, I was happy to move on to another year. The nightmares eventually stopped but I still hear certain airplane engines or helicopters that remind me of the sound that I heard just before the second plane hit. 4 images are forever embedded in my head from that morning - the impact of the 2nd plane, people falling from the towers, people running for their lives when the 1st tower collapsed (I did not see that one actually collapse but I heard it) and finally the 2nd tower collapsing. I doubt they will ever leave my memory. It all feels like a bad action movie all over again.
One time I went to a party that happened to be on the same floor as the 1st apartment we sought refuge in (before 8 or 9 of my colleagues came back to my apartment to use my landline since none of the cell towers were working). I felt a bit uneasy and some of the memories came back. I stayed and toughed it out. (2021 ed note: Do not take this as advice. Do not tough it out. Get professional help) I still have trouble watching news related to this event. When I was in London recently, a commemorative special came on and the channel was changed immediately.
But I also think of some humorous things that happened since then. As I mentioned before, 8 or 9 colleagues of mine took refuge at my apartment in the West Village. What I did not say is that most of them were very senior managers within Research (Managing Director level for those of you familiar with Wall Street) and they were in my shoebox apartment on Bedford Street. So we had a reception with Rudolph Guiliani a few months ago and a number of people who were in my apartment that day were at the reception with their spouses (2016 ed note: this was pre-crazy Guiliani). I was introduced on more than one occasion as 'the girl who let us camp out at her apartment and use the phones'. It was humorous because those anecdotes happened on separate occasions with a friend witnessing it each time.
So when this anniversary came around, I started to really dig deep, as they say, and think about how I felt on the days leading up to this day and the day itself. I constantly remind myself how lucky I am. I think I take the time to tell the people in my life who are close to me how much they mean to me. So many people that morning did not and will regret it for the rest of their lives. I am keeping perspective or at least trying to. As one friend recently reminded me, we had very little difference between the people in the WTC and WFC - we all went to work that day on a glorious Tuesday morning in September. I just had the benefit of location that morning and that was it. But that small benefit saved my life…. along with quickly evacuating.
I'd like to make one thing clear though - while the tone of this e-mail has been somber, I am one of the lucky ones. Make no mistake about that. I have been able to resume my life as it was pre-9/11/01. Many people have not for a variety of reasons. Some people, who maybe did not lose anyone per se, can't ride the subway - they get panic attacks. Little things that you take for granted are suddenly not so little. My life is good and 2002 on the whole has treated me quite well. I was in Australia for the wedding of 2 close friends in January, plus spent some time sailing in New Zealand and the Greek Islands. One of the gents on my trip to the Greek Islands, Marc, has encouraged me to stop and to smell the flowers a bit more. I was able to leverage a business trip in August and meet up with him in 3 different cities on the weekends, plus I'm planning on meeting him in Switzerland in October. (2006 ed note: I married the guy) Marc's a good guy and I consider myself lucky that he happened to be on my boat for the same amount of time I was onboard. So things are good for me and I'm not complaining.
They say every generation has their 'where were you when.....'. For our parents, it was probably JFK's assassination. For ours, let's hope it's this because something worse happening is just unthinkable to me. So instead of waiting for something else to happen, I'm going to make my life happen on my terms. Here is hoping that you are all doing the same. Own your shit - plain and simple.
PS — RIP Vinnie Bag O'Doughnuts.
Marc and I on Patmos (Dodecanese Islands, Greece)