Chronic Sadness of Sunday Evening: The Towers

I was on the bus heading home and the route inevitably took me to the site of the World Trade Center. Each time I pass by there, I get a lump in my throat. It's impossible for anyone who lived through that time, to not feel affected by it. Passing by there today was worse than the average day. Every 9/11 the old feelings of extreme vulnerability, fear, guilt, relief, rawness, and sadness felt that day resurface. The anxiety and frustration of the constant calls in the vain attempt to reach a loved one only to hear a busy signal or a recording saying that your call could not get through. The feeling of heaviness in my heart as I looked out the window that day and seeing those behemoth landmarks crumble and take with them the lives of 2000+ innocent people in one morning.

I walked home that day because all buses and subways leaving Manhattan were stopped. Cars crossing the bridges out of Manhattan would stop and drivers would offer rides to the elderly or disabled. Complete strangers hugged and comforted each other. At the other side of the bridge people provide bottled water and assistance to the "bridge walkers." It was an awful day, but I also saw another side of people that day. A humanity that seemed to have been lost, reappeared that day. It's a shame that over the last 9 years we've reverted back to how we were before.