Nine Eleven
I was working for a defense contractor, my then-husband as an apprentice handyman. He and his boss heard about the first plane on the radio and he called me.
You’ve heard it before, from almost everyone every where: I did not believe this was a huge deal.
I looked for a little on the Internet, then went down to the cafeteria where news stations played on mounted TVs.
This was a huge deal.
The President was just an hour or so south of us, reading to school kids.
I went to the bank, withdrew some money. I went to the gas station and filled up. I came back to work.
By now, all the conference rooms were playing the news and people were crowded in there, staring and sharing platitudes. Many did not understand why we weren’t sent home.
The next day, we would know that seven employees of our company had been killed on the flights. No one from our location.
For me, 9/11 was scary in a different way. I had been awaiting a government secret security clearance. It was obvious the government was going to be very busy, and very stingy with handing them out after this. I was worried I would lose my job before ever gaining any skills - I could do very little actual work without that specific colored background on my employee badge.
(I received the clearance sometime later - November perhaps. It would weigh heavy on my mind in 2005 when I decided to leave my job because it meant giving up such a valuable, marketable item.)
There was very little about 9/11 that felt real to me. I didn’t cry that day. I was too stunned and anxious for the other shoe to drop. But my daily commute went right past Tampa International Airport. And I cried when sitting in traffic later in the week and the first plane flew over me.