Off On A Tangent

So I'm getting a little tired of seeing Nicolas Cage with a bad accent every other commercial break. I'm almost relieved to see Will Ferrell doing stupid Will Ferrell things (And I absolutely hate Will Ferrell comedy almost as much as Jim Carey face mugging). Just the idea of this World Trade Center movie makes me cringe.

I didn't loose anyone on September 11, 2001. I don't know anyone who was directly affected by the attacks. I wasn't sitting in front of a television watching the towers fall. Still, five years after the fact, I have to say I'm pretty psychologically impacted.

I was answering phones in a doctors office. This wasn't a hospital. It was a physicians that staffed maybe eight Primary care physicians and four OB / Gyne, half of whom might be in the office on any given day. When the attacks occurred we were asked / told to stay.

For the first couple hours people actually called in and cancelled. It took the administration a while to decide to bump all the rest of the days scheduled appointments. They expected us to call people and let em know that they wouldn't be seen that day. Most people had figured that out by the time I called em and were fairly anxious to get me off the phone. No they didn't want to reschedule at this time.

My mother was in the air that morning, coming home from Las Vegas. Her flight got in just before the airlines closed. I called home and was much relieved to here this.

We didn't have radio or television up buy the phones so some o the other staff would periodically come buy to fill us in, if they could tear themselves away from the news.

I brought up the msnbc news website after a number of attempts. The amount of traffic to all the news web sites had so congested the net that it really wasn't practical to try and stay abreast by reading news online. One of my coworkers saw the image of the burning tower on my screen and asked / told me to turn it off.

We were finally allowed to leave some time after noon. Downtown Chicago was a ghost town. I walked to my train station through empty streets. It was like a scene out of The Stand.

I will always remember that day. I certainly don't need a T-shirt or an lapel pin in the shape of the American Flag.

By February 2002 the stress of that event, of working downtown, of riding commuter rail into the heart of the city every day at the same time and of course of answering the phones for people who only saw me as an obstacle between them and their doctor, was entirely too much. A friend of mine was making regular visits to Macomb, IL. I went down with her for a visit and made arrangements to return to live.

I left Chicago with three hundred dollars and a small car load of necessities. I made a quick hundred helping out a real estate auction house on a day when they had three houses to empty and then I found work in a bar making five dollars and hour cash under the table. I would work maybe 7 hours a night one or two nights a week. For the next three months I managed to get by and get pretty well plastered on a regular basis. The money ran out in May of 2002 after a Tuesday night party that pretty much started at four in the afternoon and ran well into the early morning of Wednesday. I'd say I saw the sun come up, but I don't actually remember that. I woke up to a massive head ache, and empty wallet and the realization that I had to go back to Chicago, because basically there wasn't enough money for me in Macomb to support a drinking habit that would properly stifle my anxieties and there never would be.

I worked as a temp for a few short weeks after I got back to Chicago. It seemed to go all right. Then my mother had her heart attack and I was home bound for the next couple years.

Two years of caring for my mother, then two years of just being around for one crisis or another. Now the idea of work is somewhat terrifying. I have a huge whole in a pretty dismal resume. I have no degree. I don't drive. I get angry if my mother asks me about finishing my degree and I can not explain why.

So the old man was in to see his doctor the other day, and since we have the same doctor, he expressed some concerns he had about me. The doctor, of course, wouldn't discuss me directly, though he gave em a card for a counselor he works with and I'm thinking I'm going to do this. I'd like to know why I do the things I do. I'd like to be able to actually sit down and write something again, other than this blog. I'd like to have a few dollars to call my own, to make plans for myself and not have them dictated to me by the people who generously allow me to reside in their house. I'd like to have some ability to cope with anxiety other rather than have it be channeled into worry and anger.

The fact that I am this way makes me wonder about the children. I remember Laura Bush on the television saying something like, "Tell them they are safe, and they are loved" Except with that Texas accent. How are the children coming through this years after the fact. They took in all those images. They saw the fear and anxiety not just in their parents but in all adults. They have seen our country became more politically polarized year after year. I'm pretty messed up and I at least have the help of years of life to put things into perspective, to help me analyze my feelings and actions.

So is five years to soon for this kind of movie. I'd say yes it is. We haven't forgotten. We aren't likely to. It is just more hero making and I don't think we need any more of that.

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