8:17 a.m. - 2007-09-11
Individual to Collectiveness
On that crisp September morning, as I drove my daughter to school, I remember thinking what an unbelievably beautiful day it was. The sky was as blue as sapphires and the air was cool, yet warmth was hiding around the corner. I drove my usual way that I had been doing for years. Down Dundee to Pfingsten to Waukegan. And as I glanced in my rear view mirror to make sure my daughter was practicing her spelling, I remember thinking how sad I was. I had a third grader who was doing well in school, lots of friends from church, a good job, Stuart who was the best boss ever, yet a husband who didn’t really love me anymore.
And then I heard it. Barry on the Eric and Kathy show was reporting that a small plane had hit the one of the WTC buildings. And as I made my way to Deerfield, the reports were getting more and more bizarre. Instead of a small plane now they were saying that a commercial airliner had hit one of the buildings. What? I knew enough from my flying experience that this wasn’t right. Airliners never flew near big cities; always around them. And I knew instinctively at that moment, that something was very wrong.
I kissed my daughter good-bye and as I watched her uniform walk away I started on my way to work. I called my husband as I neared my building and asked if he has heard about any of this? And he confirmed that yes, it was a commercial airline and that yes, it had flown right into the building. He was cold, distant, that he had to go because another call was coming through. But that he thought it was an act of terrorism.
As I made my way into the building, within a fracture of a second, I knew something was terribly wrong. I heard people talking, now about a second plane. And as I made my way up to my office, I could see that everyone was walking to Don’s office. The only office with a TV in it. And as I made my way in.... there were at least fifty people and everyone looked as if they had seen a ghost. And as I tried to wrap my mind around what was really happening it hit me. Our innocence was over. Done. And it was forever gone.
I went back to my office and again called my husband. All of a sudden it was if everything was clear as that morning sky. I realized that I along with the rest of America, had lived my life as an individual. In denial. That as American’s we purchase what we want, we own are own cars, we build are own businesses, we elect who we feel is right for the country. We have freedoms; freedoms that we take for granted smugly. And those freedoms penetrate within our own families. We make decision’s, we overlook things to just keep the perceptions up.... all along consuming things and rationalizing to hide our personal pain. I knew that my husband had been having an affair for years. I could smell her on him. I could hear her laughter when it came to me. I had read their emails to one another. She once called me a stupid fool. I read about their loving making and yet I pretended. And in all truth, we hadn’t been physical for years. And yet, I overlooked it. I overlooked her smell, his distance from me, his lies about going out all of the time. Like our government had with all of us. And why did this moment make me face my own fabricated life? Why had I pushed "truth" to the back of my soul to try and keep my ideal of a family up that wasn’t really real?
There were two things I said when my husband finally answered the phone. The first was about our daughter. Should we get her, should we get out of the city until things calmed down? And the second was that I knew about K and that I had known about her for some time. That it was ok, but from this moment forward we were going to have to change things. And we did. It was the day we started our ending. It was the day he didn't come home to "us." It was the day I became real.
After crying and praying, I believe that our country left all of our own individuality to the back burners and we became a collective society in whole. We finally saw our vulnerabilities; our weaknesses and we decided we were going to fight this. Not alone but together. It was our wake up call to embrace our freedoms, to stand up for what we believed in and to bring compassion and empathy back into the mainstream.
I will never forget that day, as you won’t either. But for me personally…
On 9/11, I woke up…
It was the first day of the rest of my life, in being true to my fellow human kind.
And most importantly...to my real self.
