Day 70... September 11.

I was on my way to work on the morning of nine-eleven. I never made it to work. I was running late and I took the last bus into Manhattan. It was my second to last day of work at this company before I boarded a plane to Texas to start what I thought was a new life. I had two of the happiest years of my life as I worked at the World Trade Center in New York. I remember there used to be some huge planters in the lobbies of the twin towers, and every so often I used to 'steal' a few flowers and anonymously place them at the desk of a few of the coworkers that I liked. I remember going down to the street level for lunch and walking just past the fire station to a corner pizzeria or browsing the farmer's market they had there every Thursday, and I'd flirt with the Mennonite woman who sold cheese curds and other farm products. She was really nice, and we'd talk about the Mennonite mission they had started in upper Manhattan, and often I promised to come visit their services. I was hoping to see her that day. But sometimes I would go to this sushi bar downstairs and get a pretty cheap lunch to take with me to my desk. It was such a beautiful place to work. I miss it so much.

Our bus came as close as Hoboken and we had to turn around and go back. We made it past the Tapanzee Bridge before they closed it off and I was home again at my parent’s house. By that time I had moved out of my apartment, sold my cabin in upstate NY and had everything I owned packed and placed near my desk at work. Three large duffle bags. I worked for a company in Tower 2 on the 21st floor. I realize I didn't lose much on that day, and everyone I new made it out alive and well. But not long after that my life fell apart. It was hard to imagine the personal items I had lost. It was even harder to witness my workplace being disintegrated right before my eyes. Even more difficult was the insanity of going through the process of FEMA only to be rejected, and then having to endure another application process at FEMA's request, only to be rejected again and again until I just started throwing out the mail because it made me physically ill to look in my mailbox. But all of this seems to be just the lesser part of what I went through. To what degree or percentage the actual event and consequences weigh in at, I do not know. But I feel that the months, years and lives I had to live since then seemed to be a sadness that was seemingly unbearable, and yet no one out there in all this time could connect with me to fulfill some basic yet somewhat obscure need that I had to be loved after enduring this sadness. I needed people to tell me they cared for me, and yet as a man I found it impossible to voice this need.

I remember, after moving to Texas just a few days after the disaster I met up with some old college friends, and they took me out for dinner. I don't drink, but they were having a few and they would announce to a waitresses and women as they passed by that I had survived nine-eleven, and then they told me that I had to use this experience to my advantage so that I can "get laid" and even though I was so offended by the comment, I felt that I didn't have the strength to fight back. I lasted less than a month in Texas and came back to Connecticut and lived with my parents. My experience in Texas told me that I had to shut up about nine-eleven for good, and pretend it never happened to me. People were more concerned about the war aspect of it. They would look at me and say, you 'you should be grateful' or 'God definitely has a plan for your life' when it would have been entirely reasonable just to say that it was sad that you had to suffer through that and 'I am not sure what I would have done if that happened to me'.

I remember that I could not talk about the disaster any more because it made me physically ill to do so. And yet the media was, and to a certain extent, still is saturated with news about nine-eleven that hardly a day (and at one time hardly an hour) goes by without being exposed to it. I used to have the most vivid dreams of being at my old workplace and being with my old friends in my life the way it was, and upon waking my heart would sink like it was made of lead, knowing that it was just a dream. I was no longer living in New York City. I was no longer taking the weekends to work on my cabin in upstate New York. I was no longer going out with friends. I was no longer dating. I was living at home with my parents and finding it hard to concentrate on a job that I was highly overqualified for, obsessing over the news, anticipating Bin Laden would be captured any day now, gaining weight and feeling trapped. Thoughts of suicide crept into my head, and I ballooned up to the 400 lb mark. I had gained over 100 lbs since I left New York. I was depressed, devastated, suicidal and alone. I didn't bother going to my 20 year high school reunion. I began to lose the desire to live.

I went to therapy for a while at this time in my life. Psychotherapy is such a hard thing to regulate; it's hard to know what you are getting into. I went every week for a few months until my counselor just disappeared. The head of the practice 'acted' surprised to see that my counselor did not inform me that she was leaving, and she offered to take up my sessions where I had left off. But I could tell she wasn't interested. I made the decision right then and there that I was just going to forget about nine-eleven all together. By then my survival story seemed to be a big joke, and now it was just a way for someone to make some money off of me.

I stopped talking about nine-eleven. When it came up on TV I changed the channel. On the internet I ignored it. I believe that on some level my story seemed unremarkable or insubstantial, like Blotto from Animal House rolled off the set and had to endure what I endured, and because it happened to him then it didn't matter because he was just a loser anyway. I discontinued all correspondence with FEMA and The Red Cross. I started looking at myself and my problems as if nine-eleven had nothing to do with them. It took along time. It was as if I woke up from a long, bad dream. However, I did have one major setback. Just as I started to 'wake up' from all of this my father died, and then I had to recover from that as well. At times I struggle with the idea that nine-eleven was somehow more painful than my father's death, and I found that is simply not true. You see, it took a year for me to get back to the place I was emotionally before he passed away. He had a fatal illness. I saw it coming. I was able to spend quality time with my dad, and I was there for him to the very end, and so the mental and emotional recovery was quite different than that of nine-eleven. On nine-eleven I wasn't killed or fatally wounded or crippled. I didn't lose a loved one in that disaster so I didn't have the right to call myself a survivor. I lost all my material possessions that day, and yet I had to endure mocking from FEMA and the Red Cross that I was a fraud, but to 'please fill out another application. It is important to us that you do so' just so I can be accused of being a fraud all over again. Being called a fraud was much worse than having lost my possessions to begin with. Then there was the shame of surviving. Of not being there with my coworkers. Then there was the sadness of having worked at such an esteemed address. The thought that I would have a family someday and I would take them to the tower's observation deck and tell them that I used to work here. The thought that I would come back to New York every so often and visit my friends. All of that is gone now.

I am living in another city somewhere in the south, still struggling but somehow managing at a job that I am highly overqualified for. I replaced that cabin from Upstate New York with a house in the city. I have a couple of dogs and a cat. I visit my mom often, who lives a couple hours away now. I am losing now about 60 pounds from my peak at 400. I go to the gym every day. Life today is more difficult than I would have imagined, and certainly more difficult than from before nine-eleven. But my life must go on. I am awake now.

Nine-eleven remains to be a very sad day for me.