10 Years have passed

Today is the 10 year anniversary of 9/11. I still can how I felt, what I was doing and where I was. Tears still rolls down my face when I hear the stories about loss and heroism. My heart breaks for the children who lost their parent, the parents who lost their children or the families who never fully got closure. Often I find myself wondering what those poor people in the building or airplane felt moments before their death. I put myself in their shoes and wonder if I too would be brave enough to fight or would I have passed out from panic.

September 11 will be a day that I tell my kids of. I want them to understand how it changed our nation. Why we should be thankful to the many men and women in the military. Why we should thank a fireman, police officer or paramedic any chance we can. Today is a day that we should fell blessed for what we have and appreciate that life can end in a moments notice. To remind our family how much we love them. How lucky we are to be a nation that allows us to speak our mind, practice any religion and marry who we want (or divorce who we want).

I hope everyone has turned this event into not a day of mourning but of a day of appreciation and pride of our country.

You can read my post 10 years ago on September 11, 2001 here.

Watched the Bruins win the cup!

I would love to say how exciting this day was for me. How I watched the Bruins win surrounded by countless fans. How I high-fived random fans as beer is being passed out to celebrate. Proudly showing off my Bruins pride along with the way while confetti is being tossed.

Nope.

When they won I was home. Alone. In bed. Sigh…so boring.

David is a HUGE Bruins fan whereas I am not. I prefer my Patriots and Sox to the Bruins or Celtics. So when David asked if it was okay to watch the game with a group of his friends at a bar, I was fine with that. But there was no way in Hell that I was going to miss watching the Bruins possibly win the Stanley Cup, considering since the Bruins have not won the Stanley Cup in my lifetime.

This all came down to this game. The Vancouver Canucks were a strong team and so were the Bruins. Each team had won 3 games and whoever won this game brought home the cup. Bruins fans wanted that cup and chants of “We want the cup” became our motto.

So I laid under the covers in bed and watched the last hockey game of the season. It was an easy win for the Bruins and they dominated this game winning with a score of 4-0.

I cheered and wrote a Facebook message congratulating the Bruins on their win. Then I fell asleep. David came home and had this huge grin on his face late that night. I woke up briefly and then passed out again.

Hmmm… this sounds like my activities when the Red Sox won the series in 2004. I wish these games were on earlier. Oh well. Congrats Bruins and their die hard fans!

Survived Rapture!

According to Harold Camping, the end of the world or “Rapture” was to begin at 6pm on May 21, 2011.

From what he said, God was going to be taking people who followed and truly believe straight to Heaven. Everyone else would have 6 months to repent and surrender themselves to God because on October 21, 2011 the world would be destroyed. People left on Earth would suffer greatly and lots of death/destruction would be around us.

Harold Camping has predicted the end of the world in 1994. When the world did not end, he blamed it on a miscalculation. What he didn’t realize (or care about) was that his followers where quitting their jobs, maxing out their credit cards and in some extreme cases committing suicide. It has been the same this time. His followers really believe him 100%! Nice guy, huh.

On May 21, 2011 at 6pm I was in Boston with David. We were on our way to a Red Sox game. At around 5:50pm a thick fog covered Boston. Traffic was heavy and we were stuck staring at this strange fog rolling in.

5:59pm we were still in traffic seeing the fog inch its way to us. And then the clock struck 6pm…..

It was truly amazing what we were witnessing…..

Traffic was letting up and we were able to get to Fenway. And that fog was just fog. Nobody was taken into Heaven. No earthquakes or storms happened. Nothing exciting but the fact that traffic was moving again.

Thanks for the laugh Harold Camping!

Watched the Royal Wedding!

Live.

On TV at 5:30am.

On the day that I was moving out of my apartment.

Having spent an entire month of packing, cleaning and throwing away, I was going to officially moving in with my boyfriend. I was nervous and excited all at the same time. Plus I was just extremely wiped out both mentally and physically. I really am not a big fan of moving.

The night before, I went around packing everything in boxes. I was exhausted and couldn’t to finally be done with everything. At around 10:30pm I felt drained and went to lie down on the couch. I was just going to rest my eyes for a few minutes.

ZzZzZzZzZzZzZzZzZzZzZzZzZz

I woke up at 3:30am with the lights in my apartment all on and the TV blasting away. Sitting up I looked at all the unfinished apartment. Still so much work to do before David comes with his cousin and Aunt to load the truck.

Instead of stressing about it, I switched the channel to live coverage of the royal wedding. I laid there watching 2 hours of news coverage of everything between what Kate will be wearing, the guest attires and replays of Charles and Diana’s wedding.

When Kate finally loaded the car to be taken to the church I have to admit I was breathless by her. She looked stunning and truly like a princess. She was the icon of what every little girl wanted to be when they grow up.

I sat there and watched the entire wedding. I saw her make her way up the aisle of the church, her amazingly beautiful sister and the entire ceremony (which was very boring!). I stayed glued to my TV up until William and Kate kissed on the balcony and walked into the palace to have their reception.

The wedding was a great mix of traditional and modern. Kate’s dress was gorgeous. The entire wedding made me want to be a princess! I was really glad to watch a piece of history live on TV.

Watched a historic election

I do now want to go on in this post about politics. Mostly this is due to the fact that I know very little about them. I just knew that America was not doing too good. We were in the need for a major change.

Then Barack Obama came. He seemed to bring new ideas and hope for our country. People who never voted before were now inspired to vote. He seemed to inspire me to get more involved with what was going on in my country. Barack seemed to make people actually interested in politics.

Oh yea, did I mention that he was black too.

That’s right. This was the first time in United States History that a black man had the chance to be elected as president. This was HUGE! I never understood why we didn’t have a black president already. It really seemed strange to me.

It was no surprise to me that Barack Obama won as our 44th president. He seemed to be what America was looking for. A change. I watched it live on TV. I have to tell you I was slightly emotional and really felt like this is what we needed. I felt like finally America has reached a new milestone.

Lets just hope that he does everything that he promised us.

Witnessed 9/11 Live on TV

I was 18yrs old, living with my parents and unemployed. It was still hot at my parent’s house so I slept on a mattress on the floor in the living room (the only room with an AC). My Dad was the only one home because my Mom was at work, my sister was living with her ex husband in Cambridge and my brother was at school.

I remember hearing the phone ring and my Dad picked it up. It was my sister. She told my Dad to turn on the news because there was a plane accident in NYC. My Dad turned on the news and Live coverage was showing one of the towers on fire. What a shame I thought. This is why I don’t like to fly.

As we were watching, the TV showed a low flying plane hitting the tower. I thought someone caught the plane accident on camera. What I didn’t realize was that I just witnessed the second plane hitting the second tower live on TV. When I finally did realize what I was watching I sat straight up. What was going on here? Then the news shifted to another plane crash at the Pentagon. When the 4th plane crashed in Pennsylvania, I was terrified.

My eyes were glued to the TV. Panic and fear went through my body thinking that Boston was the next target. Anger also went through me when it was said that it was terrorist attacks against the USA. I watched in horror as helpless people waved out the window of the twins tower and watched the people jump to their deaths. I was confident that the fire would be under control. But then the first tower fell.

My heart broke watching the icon of NYC fall. The first thing I though of when it fell was “I guess we can’t call it the Twin Towers anymore.” Its weird what goes on in your mind. But then the second tower fell to the ground. I swear to you there was 1 minute of pure silence. It seemed like everything stopped except for the falling of the tower.

When the silence ended, chaos began. It looked just like a set for a disaster movie. Everything was covered in ashes and dust. It didn't look real. This whole thing must be some kind of dream or some kind of sick joke. Sadly, it was real. What scared me the most was that those planes came from Logan airport. That's the airport that I would need to go to if I was to travel.

So many people lost their lives that day. Men and Women who were going to work, headed on vacation, pr looking to just go home. Also we lost many brave men and women who went in that building to save other peoples lives. I wanted nothing more then to go down to NYC and help out in any way I could. I kind of wish I did. During this time I felt so privileged and honored to be an America. Everyone seemed to just come together. It was such a bittersweet feeling.

A collection of people who lost their lives in 9/11

Due to everything, there were no planes for the first couple of days after the attack. You may never notice planes overhead but when they are gone you do notice. Its a crazy, haunting silence. I was lying on the couch and it was late at night. Everyone was sleeping except my Mom and myself. It was very quiet and then I heard a the first plane in days overhead. For some reason this really bothered and frightened me. I told my Mom I was scared and she held my hand until I fell asleep. That was also the night I realized that life does go on.

I can’t tell you where the rest of my family was that day or if I ever went to visit my boyfriend that day. I don’t even know if I called Johnny. I can’t remember if I cried or not. Certain pieces of that day tattooed themselves in my brain. I don’t ever want to forget this day. This day I realized that America is a great country and that we can not be taken down. Despite the terrorist attempts, they just made us stronger.