9/11

Today is the 5th anniversary of the 9/11 attack and for some reason I feel the need to talk about it. I've been watching the tv all morning, reliving that day...I wasn't in New York at the time, although I know EXACTLY where I was and what I did that day. It's amazing how your life changes, and yet things like this can take you back in a heartbeat. I wasn't dating Adam, wasn't married, didn't have a baby....I was a college sophomore, an RA at Smith Hall, a photography student with big dreams. I remember waking up to someone yelling "We're getting bombed!" I had no idea what that meant, but I did know that I didn't believe any of it. I spent the entire day, in my PJs, on my tiny, uncomfortable love seat in my dorm room, watching my 13" television, crying. I didn't go to class. I don't think I even answered my phone. I just couldn't believe all that tragedy was going on in our country--who attacks the U.S.?? Two years later, I went to New York, to interview for an intership with Maxim magazine cover photographer Antoine Verglas, to look for an apartment, and see what living in New York would really be like...and we went to ground zero. It was nothing like the reports on TV...it was a huge cement slab with huge fences surrounding it....cold. No memorials, no visible sign that anything had existed there...it was empty. And the worst part was that there were TONS of street vendors trying to make a buck off of something so horrific.

I see the attacks differently today. I see them as a mother...and I start crying. I think of them as a wife...and I can't imagine. It absolutely breaks my heart to think of what those mothers, fathers, husbands, and wives are going through...those that lost a loved one that day. Not being able to hold my baby boy again, or to kiss my husband again...it's eye opening. Before, I was mad about what happened, but today, I am irrate. To know that someone took all those precious moments away from some mom or wife pisses me off....but it makes me cherish every moment with my own family because you absolutely never know what the next day is going to bring...so my advice for the day is, hug your kids and kiss your spouse and be greatful that it wasn't you in those buildings or on those planes...and then say a pray for those families that were.