Eleven

"What is past is prologue."
-William Shakespeare

It has been a while since I wrote here.  This is going to change soon as I am going on a journey.  I will be joining a delegation to Japan and the journey starts tomorrow in Washington, DC.

Besides announcing I am going on a trip for two and a half weeks that I fully intend to blog every step of the way, it's also the impetus for this post.  In tearing through rooms, trying to find world adapters and inflatable travel pillows (you'd think I travel enough that this wouldn't even be an issue), I happened upon something that made me stop dead in my tracks.

See, the funny thing about being busy is not noticing things like dates.  I can honestly say that in the past year and a half, I've been a slave to every calendar that I've come across. Specifically, that means I don't know what the actual date is unless it's either important, I need to fly, or someone's birthday.  Since I've been working on a campaign for the past year and a half, dates are a blur.  And though I've been fortunate to have a slower summer than I've had in years, it's still the case that I know dates for things that are going to happen, but not necessarily what the date is on any given date.

So imagine my surprise when I look at the calendar yesterday and realize today is the 11th.  For folks that survived New York or DC those days, they understand that sometimes that realization is like a knife that stabs you or sometimes it just is what it is.  You never know which one you're gonna get.  

This year, more of a, "huh" feeling.  Last year was complete torture, verging on the traumatic.  Just this past weekend for the Labor Day parade, I was driving south in Manhattan when I noticed the lights were on.  I was so confused until I realized we had passed into September.  And that was it.  No horrible reaction, no gut twist.  Almost welcome, in some ways, because at least I was reminded of the day that way instead of seeing the WTC on fire on TV like last year, which is jarring and almost cruel.  Last year's 10 year anniversary was like getting punched in the gut every time I'd turn on the TV.  It's part of the reason that last year, I escaped in the best way I could - by being at Harry Potter World at Universal Studios with another friend who was trying to escape as well.  Sure, it sounds silly, but seriously, the range of emotions is always unpredictable.  

So fast forward to yesterday, as I'm ripping through things in my house and I happen upon my journal from 2001 - intended to be a journal of my Coro Fellow year that should have started at the beginning of September.  Instead, it begins on September 20, 2001, where it reads:

"I meant to start this earlier, before all of this craziness began. A journal or journey of my year with Coro and finally becoming a 'New Yorker' in the [truest] sense.  Unfortunately, it starts out with a cataclysmic event. It will be more interesting, but perhaps through this, we can find the positive side of tragedy. Much like everything else, there is a balance.  Where to begin? Forget everything prior and start with now..."

It's really funny what happens when you get older. Things get more in focus the further they get away from you.  This is one of those moments in my life and history that probably will sit slightly unfocused while everything else around it becomes more clear. 

Every year, as time and distance separate that day, I always marvel at how far away it is, though I can still feel that day if I decide to conjure it up, just like it was yesterday.  But some details are getting fuzzier.  Some details suddenly emerge as if they've been hiding around the corner.  But while it holds an obvious place in history, it has a significant place in mine as well.   I was a young, 22 year old, fresh out of college and interested in taking on the world, starting with New York City.  This event shook me out of whatever la-la land I was living in.  

And it is still one of the significant reasons I've stayed in New York (though I left the city) since.  Because I decided it was important for me to be in a place that would inspire me after such a tragedy.  Important for me to commit to New York.  Funny thing is, I found the best way to do it was to move to its Capitol instead of staying in the city.  You can take the girl out of Upstate...

The rest of my journal then is a pasted montage of things.  The first thing after that intro is the email I wrote the night of the 11th, when I sent an email to friends and family that I was alright, but somehow ended up writing a novel that then went around the world to people I had never met.  People have asked to read it.  With trepidation, I hesitated putting it here.  But I also recognize the significance it had on me and others.  So, in a moment of catharsis, the email in its entirety is posted below this one.  So anyone has the option of reading it or not.  

The pages after that are filled with emails and responses from friends and family that day and afterwards.  Almost as if I needed the reminder that there was a lot of love after something like that.  And I can't help but still feel very lucky and warm to have that love still in my life.

But, as goes Shakespeare, so does this event in history and in my personal history.   It was the beginning of my adult life - forcibly pulling me from the safe haven of my educated life into real world.  Staring down the hall of my 33rd year, looking back, this is where the color in my life changed and came into more focus.  It's where I truly learned the lesson of being humbly thankful that I wake up every morning.  It's where I learned that life is entirely too short to waste any minute not doing what you want to do.  And my years after were spent finding what that was and every day since, I have the privilege to wake up every day to a job I love.  It was the beginning of the road that brought me to where I am now, the fork in the road that was unexpected. 

It was the prologue of who I've become.  For that, I will never forget.  And will always be humbly thankful.