Saturday, September 12, 2015

I Forgot

I saw a few posts here and there about 9/11 and moved past them.  Its not that I'm insensitive to what happened, but I expect  people closer to the crash sites to be more active than someone like me, who didn't even watch it happening on TV that morning 14 years ago.  I hear the tributes, I see the pictures - I can't imagine how much it affected so many people's lives.  But it really didn't affect mine.  I mean, it changed the political landscape of my world forever, and I've had to change the way I pack and plan on removing my shoes when I take flights, but as a relatively average US citizen living in Los Angeles, CA it didn't fucking change much.  

In fact, the night before 9/11/2001 I was hanging out with my boyfriend at the time, lets call him AM.  He was trying out this thing where he was self sufficient in the world with minimal resources even though he actually came from a middle class family.  

That particular night we ended up sleeping in a drainage area (don't get me wrong, it was nicely cemented and relatively clean, just unusual for most people to sleep at), drinking some beers, and having no cares in the world.  The next morning, he headed over to a friends house nearby and was met by the first wave of  hysteria about planes crashing into the world trade center.  At the time, we had no solid facts, and he relayed what he'd heard to me.  We were both in college, sociopolitical activists, vegans, and punk rockers.  I think when we first heard what had happened, it was surreal in a different sense than most people think because we were primed to imagine everything as an act of some revolution that we thought was coming.  But when we took a bus to our college and talked to a local kid we soon realized that it was already being blamed on external terrorism.  

The next few weeks we watched, and read, and researched and I remember believing some crazy theories about what really happened to the towers, the pentagon, the other plane that exploded.  And I know how easy it was for me to latch on to some of these crazy theories.  That's why I understand how hard it can be for other people to this day. Not just about 9/11 conspiracy but everything else. Sometimes we are just looking for a logical neat answer or someone to blame that makes sense.  But in reality, most things happen because of a long string of actions and reactions that are hard to pinpoint.

In my own screwed up way, I remember September 11, 2001 as this day when everything changed, but not in the same way that everyone else does.  I think that was the beginning of the end for my relationship with AM.  He was critical of my drinking (as he should have been) but I took it very hard. I loved him so much. I felt like someone died when he left me.  He was one of those guys that all my friends loved and continued to ask about until years later.  He was special.  I loved him completely, for a time. And then he was gone.

No comments: