World Trade Center: September, 2001

For nearly five years now, loved ones of mine have asked me time and again to recount my experiences from the week of September 10th, 2001. They don't know what happened to me that week, only that I was in the World Trade Center the day before it was hit by two hijacked planes. I've never told the story because I've felt incredibly guilty for the grief I've felt. I've been afraid that survivors would read it and say, "You don't deserve to feel grief, you were a tourist." All the things in my head that have kept me from telling my story, I've decided to push away-to tell it once, and never again. I want it to be read with the understanding that it is just a story, a true one, but nevertheless is told with the knowledge that there are far more moving and important ones yet to be told. I want it to serve as a reminder that there are sacred moments locked inside souls all around us.

On Friday, September 6th, 2001, I boarded a plane bound for JFK Airport in New York City. After a flight of several hours from Texas, I was greeted on the ground in my destination by my boyfriend, Paul, who had flown from the opposite direction in Scotland. We were going to have a rare long weekend together in his favorite city, it was my first time in New York. We got into a towncar and headed for our hotel, The Michelangelo, which took alot longer than I thought it would, but as a first time visitor, I didn't mind at all. I couldn't stop looking at all the thing's I'd spent my life seeing on television and in the movies. It was so alive, and beautiful, and real to me. Even the garbage piled high on the sidewalks excited me.