Just Not Ready

As people may see from my profile, I live in N.Y. Outside of 3 years that I spent in Florida, I've lived here my whole life. So you could say, I am a New Yorker. With that said there's something that I need to get off my chest. Since age 19 I worked in the Finance Industry. You know, Wall Street. My first job was with a firm called Prudential Securities, located approximately 4 city blocks from the World Trade Center. As many of you know on September 11th, 2001 lower Manhattan and the entire world as we knew it, would never be the same.

I don't think I have to go in to details as to what exactly happened. So I'll take you through a tour of that day through my eyes. I'm going to jump right to when the first plane struck the North Tower. The building silently shook, we thought nothing of it. Then my supervisor who usually gets to work at about 7:30am comes running in with tears running down his face. He starts repeating over and over, I saw it! I saw the damn plane run right into the trade center!
We all huddle around the radio's that we have on our desks, and we listen. We hear that a passenger airplane identified as American Airlines Fight 11 has crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. We all wonder how? How could this happen? Something smelled funny but we just speculate the pilot was sick or had a heart attack or the plane severely malfunctioned. Then the clock ticked 9:02am. United Flight 175 cut straight into the South Tower with tremendous force. The building shook again, and the newscast on 1010 WINS just shouted "the plane hit it again" "another jet liner just crashed into the South Tower" . And then we all knew this was no accident.

That's when the phone's started ringing. My Aunt, who I lived with at the time, called me from home to tell me what happened. My girlfriend wanted to know why haven't I left yet? I didn't know at the time how serious this was. Then on the news we hear about two other planes, two other planes that were missing. One, they say was headed to the capitol. We're at war I said. We're being attacked, with our own planes as guided missile's. Next thing you know the building alarm sounds and then the panic started. Get out! Get out! I got my things together and bolted for the staircase. Me and a friend started the slow trek down the 12 flights of stairs.

Once we got outside it was pandemonium. People running, people collapsing, people crying. It was terrible. The smell in the air was pungent. I headed towards Brooklyn, took my friend with me. He wanted to go to Midtown, I told him he was nuts. Come home with me and I'll drive you to Long Island if I have to. He was clearly shaken up, I was too but I'm a calm person. I don't show my cards, if you knew me you would understand. We took about three steps and then we heard a sickening rumble. The South Tower collapses. A giant smoke cloud engulfs lower Manahattan. People run from it, it looks like a tidal wave of smoke. I just grab everyone close and duck down, let it pass I scream. Once the main cloud blows east we started to walk to the Bridge. Thousands and thousands of people all walking on the West Side Highway towards one of the most famous bridges in the world. It was unreal, ferries were parked along the harbor with body bags. Dead pigoens along the road. We were covered in the dust and soot that rained on us 10 minutes ago. We were pouring bottled water all over us to get the film of ashes off us. It smelled like burnt hair.

We listened to reports coming in on radio's people were carrying. A plane slammed into the Pentagon, another is head for the White House. This is just unbelievable. As we all cross the bridge, the sky is so blue. It was so nice today. Why? My cell phone still has no signal. As we reach the Brooklyn side of the bridge we hear the other tower just collapsed. People crying outloud. As we look back we see the plumes of smoke. I reach my uncles building. People just staring at me, I guess it's because I'm covered in that white smoky film. I see my uncle, give him a hug and then we proceed to try and find a ride home. I make some calls from his office, my mom in Florida is watching all this on TV so she had no clue if I worked there or if I'm even alive. Talking to her was hard, she was pretty upset.

When I get home I take all the clothes I had on and throw them right in the garbage pail. I shower immediately and just lay in bed for about an hour. Then I put the TV on, just to see what everyone else saw that day. It was catastrophic. The damage, the smoke, the Pentagon, the field in PA. I started crying uncontrollably, my family (all of which were home except for my uncle) just hugged me until I stopped. It was so raw, the footage of the plane being played over and over. The people choosing to jump rather than die in the inferno. I can't believe this happened. No one could.

The reason I need to type all this out was simple. See the title, Just Not Ready? I'm not. I was at the movies this past weekend. I checked out Da Vinci Code. It was good. But before that there was the trailer of the WTC movie starring Nicholas Cage. And seeing that trailer opened up all these past feelings and all these images in my head. Forget the fact that I was not directly effected by the tragedy as far as losing a loved one. I just was in lower Manahattan. I wasn't the people on TV later that night with posters of loved ones, crying into the camera. Have you seen this one or that one. Heart breaking. Could you imagine? If I'm not ready how could they be? This trailer was easy on the footage but showed the tears of loved ones, showed the rubble, the shadow of the plane. The boom. The panic. I'm just not ready to see that. It's too soon. They didn't make a movie about Pearl Harbor til the 60th anniversary. Why, after only 5 years do we need this?