Conversation was started about the Pentagon and 9/11. Who, where, when. SD was gathering background information for an article and I added my two cents. Sometimes I need to talk about it; sometimes I don't, but this time what he was getting was info from someone who was distant from the event. And I was *there*. Right place, wrong time; or wrong place, right time. And so I started to add my observations...I was there...right there...I heard the impact...I saw it, heard it, smelt it ... I was *THERE*. It was a beautiful day...and then it wasn't. and I was there...
And I was part of the conversation... and then suddenly I wasn't. SD dismissed me as much as if he closed a door and I wasn't there.
I thought I was there; and then I wasn't.
At lunch Tuesday BBC news ran footage of the World Trade Center with the North Tower on fire as the second plane flew into the South Tower. But they ran it as originally broadcast with "BREAKING NEWS" headline. not 'file footage', but BREAKING NEWS. I caught it at a glance and then choked not again, not again. And then realized it was file footage. And I still can't get it out of my mind. panic stands at my peripherals waiting for an opportunity to grab hold. Even thinking about it now I have a grip in my chest. A catch of anxiety making it hard to swallow or even to breathe.
Sometimes I feel guilty that I wasn't where I should/could have been. If I hadn't done PT that morning; if I had caught an earlier metro; if if if...I could (should?) have been there at the window ready to catch an incoming jet.
Wrong place, wrong time; and then I wasn't.
not then; not now. dismissed.
