Writer's Block: 9/11 - One writer's take.

Where were you?

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At 8:46am, I was asleep. I work weekends so no reason to be up. I was still living with my parents and traveling as a sales team for a company. My mom came bursting into my room and said, "A plane has hit the world trade center. It's really bad."

I hauled myself out of bed and grabbed a cup of coffee. I went out into the living room and my mom had CNN on the TV. I sat down and just stared. I kept thinking they were evacuating the building but then my mom called out, "You'd better come here."

We had friends who worked for American Airlines and he worked on the computer end over there. He immediately called his wife, who was on online chat with my mom. All we could make out was they knew the plane had gone out of communication and that was the first plane that crashed into the tower. And there were other planes not accounted for. I vaguely remember that the president of AA had grounded all planes not in the air.

I went back out and watched the news and the rest of the day was a blur. My boyfriend was a musician who was traveling that day. He had to get a rental car home. My dad was in California at his job site. They closed for a couple days.

Our friend in the city looked out her back window after talking to my mom and tried to get in touch with her young son who was on a field trip in the city. They had taken the train in but had to walk home.

I knew I would remember where I had been that morning for the rest of my life. My mom likened it to Kennedy when he was assassinated. Everyone alive remembers where they were when they found out.

I wasn't thinking of where I would be in ten years. Retail, our sector, was hit hard in 2001. Everyone in my immediate family all lost our jobs. We took a couple of interim jobs to get by as we regrouped and I started my own retail business. It is successful today.

The guy I was dating back then is a distant memory. I'm happily married to a handsome Brit and we have two cats together. I was living in Lake Mary back then. Now I live right outside of Disney.

In 2002, I put on hold my dream to get published so I could work full time on my business. I should have kept writing, if only for myself.

I watched the video timeline of 9/11 from the Today show and my heart nearly caved in on itself. I remembered so much of what happened that day, especially when Flight 93 went down. The three other planes were tragic and horrific but flight 93 was the turning point, where those brave souls said we will not go down without a fight.

That's how we are. We are a nation of fighters. And as a world, we are coming together. Because I truly believe we are not a world full of hate. Hate is a emotion that will eventually burn out but love will exist for all time.

For all of the people we lost in 9/11, for the firefighter who was too shy to tell our friend he loved her, even though he went to every recital her students put on, for the people who were brave in the face on true evil, we will live on in your memory.

Thank you.