Remembrance 1

I remember walking up the street towards them. The decision to go home rather than sleep over my girlfriends (at the time) house seemed the wisest. She has class in a few hours and I...well I had nothing to do. The part time job I had did not require me to be in the office the next day and the new job had not started yet. New job. First full time job out of college. It makes me laugh now looking back on it. This new job was going to be a stepping stone. It was going to launch me to new heights.

I envisioned that after a few years of work I would build my empire on the back of a successful start up company. As I got in my car and drove around the block I imagined what life would be like. How I would take care of my parents, and relax on the balcony of my apartment. Lofty ideas of a naive college graduate. The ultimate dream, though, was my office. I knew it was a stretch but I made a promise to myself: One day I would look out of the window of my office in one of towers that lay before me. Who in the business world wouldn't want to be in the World Trade Center? It was 3 in the morning Tuesday September 11th, 2001.

I am only talking about this now because 1) we all know what anniversary it is and 2) I travel through the site just about everyday. Everywhere I turned today there were images and stories saying "We will not forget" or "Remember". I couldn't escape it if I tried. And because of this what I remembered today is that I had forgotten. I travel through the WTC PATH train all of the time and I have stopped looking/remembering. I have taken it for granted and forgot everything that happened that day. I travel through the site just about everyday and I see tourists, tour groups, politicians, and activists especially today. Today it finally it hit me what I had forgotten and made me realize that ALL of these people had too. To them it seems like a novelty. A picture to show the folks back home, proof of their accomplishments, a piece or real estate, a paycheck, or another place to say you traveled to. Similar admiring the view while visiting slave quarters, the Killing Fields, Nanjing memorial, or the Holocaust museum (let alone the actual locations).