Not a bad year, all considered.
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Category: Reflected
Me, myself, or otherwise I.
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3,653 Days Later
Ten years ago, I couldn’t find any words. I’ve found a few for today.
Here’s what I remember of that day during my senior year of college: I remember our house being firmly wrapped up in the third day of party drama fallout, which quickly fell to the side. I remember waking up to ten breaking news alerts from CNN in my inbox and only being able to think “This isn’t good”. I remember ringing the doorbell to the house repeatedly after I had turned on the news in an attempt to wake everyone up. And I remember contact the Freeverse office to make sure everyone was okay.
The timing of the day – not long after I had turned 21, not long before I would graduate and get married – makes it a pretty natural chapter break between college and adulthood.
I suppose the thing that strikes me now is that I’ve had the chance to spent eight years in the city that was born out of that tragedy. It’s hard for me to fathom the ways that the city has changed before and after September 11th. I will only ever know the after, as will many of my friends who moved here long after the towers fell. This doesn’t bother me – it’s not some sort of badge or achievement I long for.
This New York is where I found myself, made my career, built up an incredible circle of friends and peers, and launched adventures I couldn’t have dreamed of while I was toiling away in college.
This New York is my New York. And I love it completely.
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The Calm After The Storm
After all of the stress of yesterday, we woke up this morning and continued to stay cautious and weary until about 10AM, when the Irene was downgraded to a Tropical Storm. We went down to the 9th floor deck and then to the building lobby to survey.
Despite being in an evacuation zone and being literally on the coast of the Hudson, we found no flooding, no fallen trees or branches, no broken glass. We did not once lose power or cable service. The lobby of our building was undamaged.
Yet the more inland parts of Jersey City – not under an evacuation order – suffered widespread flooding and power outages.
There are things in life that perplex me, and this is certainly one of them. I am not going to sit here and call the storm “boring” or “overrated” because it has impacted plenty of people. As I write this, PSE&G says 375k are without power in NJ, and I know more than a few. But how a riverfront area can avoid any damage flies in the face of my internal logic.
In any case, I’m glad it’s done and over with. But now I very badly need a vacation, or a massage, or *something*.