The Anniversary

I've never written the big "My 9/11 Story", in the first place because I can never top the best account I've ever read, and in the second because I don't have a big "My 9/11 Story". I woke up, turned on the news and watched it while I got ready for work, went to work, came home. The end. It's no more interesting than that.

One year to the day later, A.B. and I, along with our faithful plush companion Belligero the Clown, boarded a United jet and kited off to Europe. It was the most amazing, frightening thing I've ever done, not because we were flying on the one-year anniversary of That Day in a fully fueled jet on a non-stop from SFO to Schiphol, but because we were flying toward a foreign place, so far from home. I'd never been farther east than Las Vegas. I'd never been anywhere where people spoke a different language. I'd never been anywhere where I stood out as a stranger. This, more than anything threatening going on in the world, scared the Hell out of me. I still can't believe that I did it.

So, every year on September 11th, I see the "what I was doing (x) years ago" memorial posts, and I think about what I was doing (x + 1) years ago, and I feel a little guilty for feeling happy. This year, I've decided to stop feeling guilty about it. Starting later today, and going for as many days as I have entries in my travel journal, you're going to read about that trip.

Let's have some fun.