Two Years

Look­ing for a way to com­mem­o­rate the pass­ing of 9/11, I decided to focus on try­ing to answer who were then and who we are now. Last week, I passed the word around to other peo­ple, who are doing sim­i­lar entries on their blogs today, ana­lyz­ing how THEY changed as a result of 9/11. Here’s my thoughts.

Exactly two years ago, human insan­ity and cru­elty appeared at our doors, tak­ing along with it thou­sands of inno­cent lives, tak­ing with it some of our inno­cence. Look­ing back now, with the ben­e­fit of some hind­sight (though two years in the grand scheme of things is not a very long time), I real­ize that it was an event that changed many of us.

For me, the biggest change was a realign­ment of pri­or­i­ties. Prior to this day, I was intensely career-driven, focus­ing on get­ting the job done, no mat­ter what com­pany I worked for and no mat­ter what it took. Now, that impulse is tem­pered by the need for a bal­ance between per­sonal and work life. I still do care a tremen­dous amount about work but it is no longer the only thing that dri­ves me.

Along with this came some other sig­nif­i­cant changes in my world. Get­ting mar­ried, ear­lier this year, was one of those, a deci­sion that will change the rest of my life as I agreed to invest the rest of my days in car­ing for another per­son: Amy. As a fiercely inde­pen­dent per­son, this was an impor­tant real­iza­tion. You can go on run­ning for­ever but for what pur­pose? Run­ning on your own has no pur­pose than the run­ning itself. Run­ning with a part­ner, car­ing and lov­ing some­one else (and being cared for and loved in return) is a feel­ing that I can hardly describe in words. And it feels good!

Rec­og­niz­ing that I need to spend more time with friends was another change. Prior to Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001, it was almost a given that I would end my emails or phone calls with some­thing along the lines of “let’s do lunch/drinks/dinner soon”. Now, a new sense of urgency has set in. I am no longer con­tent to just say soon but often want to set a date. That change in my nature is largely due to the fact that I had out­stand­ing open-ended invi­ta­tions with a few friends who per­ished when the tow­ers fell.

Like most New York­ers, my world is also a lit­tle darker. When the black­out hap­pened a few weeks ago, everyone’s thought imme­di­ately turned to the pos­si­bil­ity of another attack. When word passed by that it wasn’t, a great sense of relief set in. We live with ter­ror­ism as a con­stant. Not front of mind but def­i­nitely there, idling on the edge of our minds. This is the post 9/11 world, this is the world we live in.

Many of us are uneasy about this. I, for one, do not tend to share much on this site about my day to day feel­ings. For starters, I don’t believe it appro­pri­ate of me to bear my thoughts as openly in pub­lic. I tend to be a very intro­verted (and, hard to believe, shy) indi­vid­ual. When sit­ting down with some friends who were THERE, who escaped from the tow­ers, we do not talk about it much. We might toast some lost friends, we know the feel­ings are there but it is still the ele­phant in the room, always around, but never spo­ken of. It’s uneasy but it is how we adapt.

Two years have passed and every­where, the events of that day are used to jus­tify just about any­thing. Cur­tail free­doms expres­sively given by the bill of rights; jus­tify wars, like the con­flict in Iraq; jus­tify a deficit cre­ated out of new tax cuts. All those have been done in the name of the vic­tims, often put in hushed words: “Well, you know, because of 9/11…” It seems that more and more, politi­cians are happy to stand on the pile of corpses from that day and use it as a bully pul­pit to clamp down on free speech and jus­tify unpop­u­lar posi­tions. No tie was ever found between Iraq and what hap­pened on that day but 70% of Amer­i­cans think that they exist. Why is that? Could it be the con­stant bar­rage of pseudo-reporting on the likes of CNN and Fox News, show­ing the pres­i­dent cre­ate that link­age, albeit never directly so that no one could call him on it?

As many peo­ple know, I am a French cit­i­zen liv­ing in the United States. The past few months have been inter­est­ing in the sense that I am now more aware of the kind of dis­crim­i­na­tion that can occur when nations are mobi­lized against a new evil. Tech­ni­cally, what I’ve writ­ten in the para­graph above could prob­a­bly be con­sid­ered sedi­tious enough to get me inves­ti­gated. Then who knows… Maybe a one way ticket to an army prison bar­rack, where I could be held for an indef­i­nite amount of time, with­out the right to a lawyer or any of the due process expressed in the Amer­i­can con­sti­tu­tion. It is some­thing that pains me, to see a coun­try as great as the United States be torn apart in such a fashion.

And yet, I remain opti­mistic. I believe, now more than ever, that this is just a phase, sim­i­lar to what must have hap­pened dur­ing the McCarthy era in this coun­try. I believe that the Amer­i­can found­ing fathers were geniuses, not for com­ing up with the con­sti­tu­tion and the bill of rights, but for real­iz­ing that they did not hold all the answers and for cre­at­ing a struc­ture that allowed for some lee­way back and forth. I believe that being an Amer­i­can is about being allowed to express one’s views, no mat­ter how unpop­u­lar they may be. No other coun­try actu­ally spells out the right to free speech in its estab­lish­ing documents.

I also believe in good for good­ness sake, as we recently wit­nessed with the black­out. When the black­out hap­pened, my neigh­bors were check­ing on each oth­ers and on us. Every­one was will­ing to share what they had, whether it was good sto­ries, can­dles, flash­lights, insights, or news. We were brought together and I believe that the hor­ror of 9/11 is what did it for us. The real­iza­tion that some­where out there some­one wants to kill us for no other rea­son that we are us brings us nearer to each oth­ers, some­thing akin to the kind of fox­hole rela­tion­ships devel­oped in times of wars. As a result of 9/11, I’ve gained mem­ber­ship in a new club: I am now a New Yorker. I may not be an Amer­i­can cit­i­zen but being a New Yorker is some­thing that defies bound­aries. I recently saw an adver­tise­ment say­ing that over 250 lan­guages are spo­ken in this great city of ours. We are really the cap­i­tal of the world and yet, we do not boast about it, we go on day after day, car­ing for each other. I’ve noticed a softer edge to the city since these events. It seems peo­ple are more com­pas­sion­ate. It seems peo­ple are more will­ing to care for their fel­low men.

So two years have gone by. It’s not a lot of time but it’s been a big time of change. I know that 9/11 changed me for­ever. I’m only scratch­ing the sur­face as to how. At this time, six of my friends have been con­firmed dead. A few more acquain­tances have just dis­ap­peared with­out a trace. Year one and two were big griev­ing years. Today, we still mourn our dead but today is also a day of rebirth. Year one made it impos­si­ble to move on, the wound was two fresh. Year two set up a bet­ter world to pre­pare for what’s next. I will never for­get the events of that day but I know that now may be a good time to let go of some of the grief and try to resume a nor­mal life. Nor­mal, that is, based on the new def­i­n­i­tion of nor­mal in our world.

Today I cry for those who have passed on and yet, I have to acknowl­edge their sac­ri­fice and see that they made me a bet­ter per­son. It is really a shame that I could not see this with­out some­thing as hor­ri­ble as what hap­pened and I now wish it hadn’t been that way. But you can never take back the past, you can only work on improv­ing the future. Lis­ten­ing to the chil­dren at ground zero today, I hope for a bet­ter world, one that we can leave to them improved, renewed, and one that we can hope­fully make a lit­tle more tolerant.

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