On 9/11

I could see the smoke from the Pentagon from my office window.  I was 28.  Now I'm 46.  I've been with the same company for 25 years, and I still work with many of the same people on this day that were there with me on that day.....it's something we shared that will bind us forever.  I remember almost every moment of that day.  My current office faces the exact same direction, and is on the same floor and in the same suite number, on this day as it was on that day.....although in the twin tower next door.  In many ways for me, not much has changed since everything changed. 

Every 9/11, I go in my office with my morning coffee, wait for the time, shut my door and turn off the light.  I stand at the window and gaze out over the eastern horizon, watching the black smoke billowing up into the sky in my mind's eye, and I cry.  I mourn deeply the loss of everything that would never be the same again after that day.  Everything in our lives is now defined as "pre-9/11" or "post-9/11".   Events like this cause seismic shifts in our human existence in an instant.  It's my generation's Kennedy assasination.

After a few moments of quiet reflection, I open my office door, turn on the light, pour some more coffee and get on with my day... and my life.  I live well.  And I live free. Because not much changes after everything changes.