Six years ago, I was getting ready to head to my city's community/technical college for a morning class, and before heading out, I wanted to see what was on television. I saw images of smoke coming out from the World Trade Center towers, and at first, I really didn't express any emotion at all. Then, I heard something about a plane going down in Washington, DC, at the Pentagon. Moments later, I had heard something about something going down nears Shanksville, PA. Then, I became very concerned, wondering "what is going on?". Then, I saw a video of what had happened at the WTC site. At the time, it felt like this was the end of the world. Thousands of folks lost their lives that day -- thousands of people from all walks of life, and not just people from the US (some from other countries died that day). For more than a week, I felt distracted, and I was unable to perform at my full potential.

I got up hoping to take a nice power walk before heading into work. I was living with the parents at the time and my mother was in the living room watching TV. I went out there to put my running shoes on, and the first thing I saw was what looked like a giant smoking smokestack from a factory or something. But in a matter of moments, I realized what it really was, and asked my mom what was going on. She told me in a nutshell what was happening. I was shaken, but I really wanted to go out to walk, so I grabbed my walkman and headed out. But I couldn't find a single up-beat song playing on any of my favorite radio stations- they were all airing news about what was happening in NYC. I couldn't power walk to that! So I came back home, and for the next hour I sat with my mom in the living room and watched what was unfolding on the TV screen. I remember hearing about another "possible" hijacked plane and felt terrified. And then heard it crashed in PA. And I watched live as the second tower fell, and just started sobbing. I did NOT want to go to work, I was too scared. But I went, and it was a very slow day, everyone seemed to be in a daze or something. And I too remember feeling very distracted over the course of the next few weeks as almost nothing but coverage was being aired on TV. It seemed to take forever before we got to regularly scheduled programing, and I finally felt like the healing process could begin.

It was just a normal Tuesday. I got up, ate breakfast, brushed my teeth, got dressed, and headed off to school. On the bus, I thought of the note my dad had written me before he went off to work. I was in school, learning, when all of a sudden, the teacher had told us what had happened. I remember sitting there, worried thinking my dad was up there. It was a very scary thought. I was scared until my dad got home that night.