I just have to

Where were you?

I was living in Sun Prairie with my friend Babe, working at the MATC bookstore. I'd been back in the area less than a month, and I was driving a crappy '94 Camry. I was in the parking lot of the condo putting transmission fluid in my car. I had the radio on, tuned to the (then) 80's station. (It's now Charlie FM...they play everything). Anyway, it was a news report, and I honestly thought it was one of those "remember this story from 1982" or something like that. Then I realized Katie Couric didn't do the news in 1982. At least not national anyway. I got confused at first because they said the WTC had been hit, and the Pentagon had been evacuated. **thinking: that's weird. I thought the WTC was in NYC**. (I eventually figured it out!) I went inside to check the news, and then it hit me. A very good friend of mine worked in Manhattan. I immediately started to cry. I sent her an email, and waited FOREVER (i had dialup at the time) to get her reply. I cried/sobbed the entire wait. Thankfully, she didn't work near the WTC, so she was fine and was leaving for home as soon as she could.

That's mostly what I remember about that particular day. I know I watched the news a lot more in the next week or so than I ever had before. I needed to know what was going on. I signed a large banner MATC was sending to NYC. I stood outside burning a lot of candles. I cried a lot. I gave blood. And I cried some more. I know I wasn't the only one.
I found myself needing to know. I needed to watch the shows and cry about it. My friend in NY didn't, though. She couldn't watch any of it. I think she didn't want to cry. I needed to.

Everyone has their story. I wanted to share mine. Remember.