I can’t believe it’s now been 8 years since 9/11.
I still remember that day as if it were yesterday. And the effect on me has been profound. I think it changed my life path toward becoming serious about writing.
But I guess this is the case with all watershed moments. You never can remember anything that happened before — just after. I couldn’t tell you what I was doing on September 10, 2001. I don’t even remember the day.
I was in the graduate writing program at Kennesaw State University at that time, and we were required to keep a journal.
Here’s my entry:
Thursday, September 13, 2001
This is the first time I am writing since this terrorist thing. I haven’t even written in my personal journal yet. I feel so helpless and numb and sort of thinking that this is still a dream and not real yet. But I know that it’s real and now I’m questioning everything.
In a way, I feel that this is telling me that you should go for your passions because tomorrow isn’t promised but then I think that this is so serious and my passion for writing so frivolous—that I feel guilty pushing forward. It is a dilemma.
So, I just feel nothing and I can write nothing. I can’t read anything either. I just think that the world is so different now. Now everyone who was fighting and arguing with each other are embracing and singing the national anthem. Everybody is going out and buying a flag and wearing red, white, and blue and I’m wondering—is that sincere? Or are people just jumping on a bandwagon?
How can you be one thing on Monday and be a totally different thing on Tuesday? Where was your compassion at 8:00 am Tuesday? How long will the compassion last? That is what I am worried about. Humans are creatures of habit and some of us have very bad habits.
Somehow the fact that I am writing about this says a lot. I tend not to write about severe and painful things. I feel like if I write them down that I relive the total nightmare all over again and writing it down is making it more real. But whether I like it or not, this terrorist thing is real and people are dead and I’m still alive and I feel guilty. I feel like I shouldn’t be happy that I’m in school or that I’m going for my goals because people are dead. I feel like I shouldn’t write anything creatively because people are dead. I don’t know how long this feeling will last.
I just weep for the people who are dead.
