What a horrible twenty four hour period.
I can’t organize my thoughts. I am at work, yet I feel as though the entire country should be shut down, a national holiday for a chance to grieve. I want to drive to New York and Washington and bring blankets, flashlight batteries and blood. I want to sit in front of the television and try to absorb it all, try to understand what it means, try to sort it out in my head.
Someone on the phone with my coworker watched as the second plane flew into the tower.
Later he called back and was upset because he wasn’t able to dial into the system.
That was because everything had been shut down.
I don’t know how anyone could be worried about marketing data when five blocks away, buildings were crashing to the ground, five blocks away people were screaming.
They didn’t let us leave work until 4:00. No one was calling. We were just all sitting around our radios. I was streaming MS-NBC in through the internet onto my PC.
My friend Eric was in Washington. He and his coworkers were driving back.
Joel was in Atlanta by himself, ten feet away from the CNN tower. He rented a car and drove it to O’Hare Airport in Chicago. Esteban drove down last night and picked him up there at 3:00 A.M. this morning, and then drove back home. I couldn’t go to work until he was back home. All night, I had horrible nightmares, sleeping in a bed by myself, hating myself for being so happy yesterday morning, before the news came out, thinking to myself ‘I love my life’. All night, I dreamt of Esteban crashing when he fell asleep at the wheel. Then I’d wake up and be mad at myself for putting energy into being afraid of something that could happen rather than putting energy into mourning what did happen.
Today, I can’t believe people are calling us, asking for their passwords to be reset, asking for help making their reports run. I can’t believe that we need to be at work. I can’t believe that everything should be business as usual when people are listening to their loved ones die under rubble via a cellular phone.
I can’t believe that people have jacked up the price of gas to as much as $4 a gallon in some areas. Esteban and I went out to lunch yesterday and could only talk about the attack. At the table next to us, a couple of kids (how old am I that I’m calling some nineteen year olds ‘kids’?) were complaining about how much it costs for insurance now that the girl had gotten two speeding tickets in one month and a fine for underage drinking.
All of those people who are missing. All of those people who are searching for someone.
I’m a bit aghast at a certain popular diarist. I’m not certain if he was trying to be his normal ‘deep thoughts’ kind of guy or what, but stating only ‘dear diary, today some people leveled the two twin 110-story skyscrapers in new york city by flying two hijacked planes into them’ seems a bit contrite and callow.
I’m wearing head-to-toe black today. There is an email floating around requesting that everyone wear red/white/blue tomorrow, to honor the men and women who died and those who risked and lost their lives trying to save them. It also asked that you drive around with your lights on, like a nationwide funeral procession.
I will be doing so. I hope you will too.
Also, the request for blood has gone out and there is a humongous response, but please keep in mind that if you donate today or tomorrow, you will not be able to donate again for another twelve weeks. Likely, the need for blood will continue, so please consider bottling this urge to do something and donate two weeks from now? The need for blood will continue, of this I am certain.
Hold your loved ones close and pray for those who have no one left.
