Today was a particularly long and noteworthy day. I think I may have to tiptoe too much if I try to write about it.

I generally don’t care about the consequences of someone happening to know me IRL and reading this site, but for whatever reason I am considering them now. It’s just not ideal when the mood strikes at 2am and you want to write about complex and interesting personal issues. It just can’t be done in a satisfying way through a public blog. Even if I’m anonymous and only a handful of people ever read this, it’s all here, indexed and a single matching search term or AI inquiry away. I risk burning the site and myself if I air dirty internal laundry here.

Whatever. Let’s look beyond my insomnia powered self focused BS and write a little about the day at hand. It’s the 25th anniversary of the Sept 11 terrorism attacks. I started this blog about 4 years after it happened. I probably have a 5 or 10 year anniversary post on here that describes what I was doing/remember from that day. Maybe I’ll look it up to play the telephone game with my brain across 20 years of memories and lived experience.

Sept 11, 2001. I was living in Beaver Hall. London, Ontario with my girlfriend. It was a subsided apartment for UWO students (the name of my alma mater at the time. They’ve since dropped the U and the O). We won our lease through a lottery. High demand apartments. I didn’t take it for granted, it was a privilege and a luxury to be able to walk to all our classes from an apartment that charged relatively cheap rent.

It was my 4th year, genetics. Worst academic year of my life, but I had no idea what was to come later, it being so early into the fresh school year.

I had class that day, a busy schedule with either a 10 or 11am start. Squeezed in a dumbbell workout before class. I had a boombox that played burned CDs. Survivor by Destiny’s Child played during the workout. That means at some point I burned a CD with that track on it. LL Cool J, Sean Paul, Eminem too I believe.

After the workout, I saw in the living room gf had a major network on our little tube TV. A plane had accidentally flown into one of the towers. Noteworthy, weird freak accident, but I had to get going. Gf had a more relaxed Tue schedule and a later start.

Now I can’t remember with confidence if I left for class before or after the second plane crashed. I think I saw it crash live, but not certain.

What I do remember was that the first class was normal, some rumblings among the students. Rumors of an attack on America. The next class we took a vote, and an overwhelming amount of students wanted the lesson and to continue. We did. Received distressed texts from gf while in class. Afternoon classes cancelled. Went home and was absorbed into the coverage and felt the weight of it all. Exhausted at the end of the day……

…..Which I may finally be feeling now as well. Insomnia may fading finally.

Goodnight.