(originally written September 2018)

I say every year I’m going to write about 9/11.

Then the day comes and goes, and my account of that tragic day is yet to be written.

One of my mantras this year is Just Do It. Call me Nike. Or don’t…

So here goes.

I mentioned in my previous post that September is a difficult month for my family and me, for lots of reasons.

The anniversary of September 11, 2001 is one big reason.

I was a flight attendant for Delta Air Lines from 1997 until I took a severance package in early 2002.

The following are some snapshots taken circa early 2001:

For young twenty-something me, there couldn’t have been a more perfect job. I was freshly twenty-one, the youngest in my “In-Flight” training class, and I was determined to see the world.

The tentative plan was to travel for a couple of years, figure out what the heck I was going to do with my life and then move on to bigger and better things.

When my two-year “Flight-Aversary” rolled around, I was having entirely too much fun to quit. My routes were better, and I was bringing in decent money, so I ditched the two-year plan and continued flying.

I was based in New York City my first year and absolutely loved it.

As a child, I was drawn to New York long before I ever visited, but when I took a trip there after high school graduation, the deal was sealed. I knew I had to live there.

For a fairly sheltered girl from the Georgia suburbs, New York was a vast new world and not always an easy one. I shared a three-room apartment in an aging, dilapidated twelve-story building with FIVE roommates in Queens.

It was tight, but we were rarely all there at the same time. One bedroom housed a set of bunk beds with two other twin beds. The other bedroom, if you really want to call it that, was more like a closet with a set of bunk beds. There was one bathroom, a small living area with a decent window, and a tiny kitchen.

Our “Super’s” name was Hank. He introduced himself to us “girls” as Daddy-O. I first met Hank the day I paid my security deposit and first-month’s rent. He reminded me of characters from The Godfather, Italian mobster-esque. Evidently I gave him too much side-eye when he said to just call him Daddy-O, so he told me I was welcome to call him Uncle Hank.

“I want all my girls to feel comfortable.”

Hank creeped me out. I kept my distance and on the rare occasion I had to actually converse with him, I referred to him as simply Hank.

I was on reserve for most of that first year, which meant I had two days a week off and the rest of the time I was on call.

These were pre-cell-phone days, so each flight attendant was assigned a beeper, which stressed me out. A month in, I opted to fork over a sizable chunk of my salary for a fancy cell phone and never looked back.

The beeper was an issue because I was constantly having to find a phone and not knowing many people or my way around the area felt creepy. The cell was a much better option.

Our apartment was in the Kew Gardens, Flushing, and Forrest Hill vicinity. Turn on the TV this weekend and watch the US Tennis Open. That was my ‘hood back in the day.

Queens is conveniently situated between JFK and LaGuardia airports, and newbie airline employees were expected to stand by, ready to fly out wherever needed. It could be JKF, LaGuardia and occasionally Newark, though thankfully not that often. It was a trek to get there. Looking back now, I’m sincerely asking myself how DID I manage all that?

It was exciting. I loved the city. I loved that some days I’d get called to work the Delta Shuttle where I’d work six legs between LaGuardia and Boston or Washington DC, and other days I’d fly to Moscow or Berlin.

I felt at home in New York. It welcomed everyone with open arms.

New York taught me. The year I spent there was one of growth, and I cherished it.

I learned to argue with taxi drivers who tried to take advantage of my youth and sweet southern accent by double charging me for tolls. (Not all but some…okay…a lot.)

My girlfriends and I would take the Long Island Railroad into Manhattan for fancy dinners, shows, live music, and dancing.

Something about New York fed my starving soul. This was just over a year after my father’s suicide. My mom was unavailable to me emotionally due to her own overwhelming grief. The energy and excitement of the city filled a void for me in many ways. I was still grieving, but New York was like a giant sparkly hug around my broken heart.

Even when I decided to move back to Atlanta, I visited New York City regularly, both for work and play. I was at JFK or LaGuardia at least every two weeks since many Atlanta rotations (that’s airline lingo for an individual working flight schedule) went in and out of New York. I also had friends who lived in the city which made leisure trips there easy and inexpensive. In many ways those days seem like another lifetime ago.

By September of 2001, Gil and I were married and living with his parents just outside of Savannah. I was still with Delta and based out of Atlanta, and Gil was finishing his undergrad at Georgia Southern University while interning with a construction firm that was doing a lot of work on campus.

It was a hard year. Commuting was hell. I had to either fly from Savannah to Atlanta and then begin my work rotation, or I had to drive to Atlanta. Either way it took me four-plus hours to get to work and then another four-plus to get home.

My trips were three days and occasionally I’d work two three-day trips back-to-back and stay with my mom outside of Atlanta for the night in between.

I only had to keep this schedule until December when Gil graduated. He had already accepted a job in Atlanta, so we were on the home stretch.

Still, the job I had once loved felt more like work than ever before, and I needed relief and soon. It didn’t help that we were broke. All the money I had previously spent on personal travel was going towards rent and groceries and debt, and it felt hard.

There were upsides. Living with Gil’s parents, Kevin and Marie, was pleasant. They treated the two of us like their children and for me it felt deliriously good. I felt cared for in ways I hadn’t since my father’s death. It was a sweet reminder of the love I missed from my own family. It was a hard time but a healing time as well.

Plus, Gil and I were newlyweds and very much in love.

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My last trip to New York was the week leading up to the 9/11 attacks. I dead-headed to LaGuardia, which means I was needed only to work the flight back to Atlanta, so I had a sweet first class seat on the flight up. As often happened in New York, there was so much traffic that we were delayed and required to circle until we got clearance from Air Traffic Control.

There is absolutely no place I’d rather be in a holding pattern than above New York City. This particular night was beautiful and clear. As I stared out the window I felt like a kid on a magical carousal. I remember taking it all in. Our pilot was an especially enthusiastic dude who did his best to calm the disgruntled passengers who had places to be and understandably were NOT enjoying the holding pattern as much as I was.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, we’ve been advised to remain in a holding pattern until the runway traffic at LaGuardia dies down. I’ll do my best to make this setback as pleasant as possible. We do not have gate information for connecting flights, but as soon as we get those we’ll make an announcement. All flights are running twenty minutes to half an hour behind schedule, so most likely your connecting flight is delayed as well. As always there will be uniformed Delta agents greeting this flight who can assist you with your connection. Thank you for your patience. Now…please sit back and allow me to enamor you with this magical city. A night this clear is a rare gem, so I encourage you to take it in. I fly in and out of New York weekly, and I haven’t seen a night this clear in months. Enjoy. Thank you again for selecting Delta Air Lines this evening, and we’ll update you as soon as we have further information.”

He was as animated with his circling of the city as he was with his announcement, making sharp turns that at times felt like the plane was completely on its side. But he did not disappoint. The glorious sky line went on for miles. I winked at the Statue of Liberty and grinned at the Empire State Building. New York City — the buildings, the people, the culture, the energy — had been in my blood since my first visit way back in 1993.

I had  flown above this spectacular skyline more times than I could count, yet it never got old. Even tonight, knowing I was about to don my wings and work a flight back to Atlanta that would likely be grueling, I couldn’t think of anything else.

The Manhattan skyline never failed to fill me with hope and enthusiasm. So much history. So much promise. New York had always been my city of dreams.

As I had done numerous times before I soaked her in, never dreaming of the dark days ahead for this majestic city.

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On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was sleeping soundly in the upstairs bedroom of Gil’s parents’ house, exhausted from work and the long commute back home to Savannah.

Gil was up and on his way to class already. As I drifted in and out of sleep I vaguely recalled the kiss he’d planted on my cheek earlier on his way out. I remember relishing that early morning-ness — that lovely feeling of being dog tired but not having to actually be up and moving.

I remained in bed for thirty minutes or so after I was fully awake. The clear blue sky was warm and inviting, and the sun shone brightly through the skylight, encouraging me to greet the day.

A day I now know I will never forget.

A day that would go down as one that changed my world.

A day that changed everyone’s world.

The sky was so clear. So blue. The sun so warm.

I washed my face and brushed my teeth before heading downstairs for coffee with Marie. Gil’s parents were so kind. They quickly grew accustomed to my eractic schedule — welcoming me when I was home, understanding when I wasn’t, and respectful of my excessive need for sleep in the days after returning.

I closed the door to our bedroom to keep the cats out, just as I’d done hundreds of times before. It clicked securely behind me, a familiar sound.

Everything was the same…until it wasn’t.

More blue sky peeking in from the skylights in the stairwell as I made my way down to the kitchen, letting me know it was still there, steady as always just before the life we all knew changed forever.

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Kevin, my father-in-law was home. This was somewhat unusual, though he often went to job sites early and would pop back in to have coffee and breakfast with Marie before going about his day.

It was just before 9am.

CNN was playing loudly in the kitchen. This was not unusual. I had learned to block it out. Kevin was a news junkie. He said it calmed him.

Marie was silent but her eyes looked different this morning. No one spoke. I needed caffeine.

“Something really bad has happened, Vivi,” Kevin began.

Marie put a cup of coffee in front of me at the large island in the center of the kitchen.

The same kitchen we had congregated around hundreds of times before.

“There’s some talk of a terrorist attack. A plane flew into the World Trade Center a few minutes ago.”

I stared at the tiny kitchen television. It was off-white and dingy. It was made by Sony. It had a radio and and a VCR underneath the screen — a three-in-one unit.

The coffee was too hot and too strong, but the light beige, stoneware cup felt good in my hand. I sipped slowly. Everything from that point moved exceptionally slow around me.

Marie’s Himalayan cats purred at my feet. Oliver, the sweet-but-angry-looking one jumped onto the counter like he always did, but instead of pushing him back down to the floor, Marie held him to her face.

Silence.

It felt eerily quiet in that familiar kitchen.

As we watched in disgust and fear and awe.

I heard the announcer before it registered,

“A plane hit the other tower!”

Time moved slower. I pulled my knees to my chest and watched in horror. All I could do was breathe slowly and deeply…and stare out the window at the sky.

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In the days that followed, our entire country learned of the horror that unfolded the morning of September 11.

Nothing could stop my brain from going over and over the horror that the flight attendants on American Airlines Flight 11, United Airlines Flight 175, and American Airlines Flight 77 lived through moments before those planes crashed.

So many lives were uprooted that day. Families kissed their loved ones like any other day and said goodbye. Forever.

It all felt so real and familiar to me. I regularly worked flights out of these airports. I had been on the same runways in the same cities as these people whose lives were cut short in an instant. It was unreal, yet it was achingly real.

Several of my friends and coworkers were on runways about to take off when they got the news that planes were flying into buildings. They didn’t know if there were terrorists on their flights.

I’ll never forget the vivid description from my former roommate:

“We were at JFK — third in line for takeoff. I was at the back of the plane, strapped in, secured for takeoff when I saw the head flight attendant walking toward me. Her head was down. She cupped my ear intimately and whispered quietly but in a firm tone I’d never heard from her, ‘Suspected terrorists on all flights. Go to the cockpit and watch for suspicious passengers.’ As I entered first class, all the passengers were calm; no one said anything if they had heard the news (doubtful since this was before smart-phones were allowed on planes.) I opened the cockpit to see if the flight crew needed anything and the copilot had his head on the throttle. He looked distressed. The captain hissed at me to get out and keep the damn door locked for god’s sake. Viv, I’ve never felt so helpless in my life. “

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This week I sat in my therapist’s office doing my best to proactively deal with what’s now routine September anxiety.

It wasn’t until later that evening when a member of a mom’s group on Facebook posted that 9/11 is when her battle with anxiety began.

I hadn’t realized how close we were to the anniversary (thanks to ADHD I never know what day it is.)

This woman shared that she wasn’t physically close to New York, though her sister had been living there at the time, and she was having a difficult time reconciling her response to the events and with the way the anniversary always seems to bring on a re-surge in her depression and anxiety.

Reading her words was like a punch, or maybe a light-bulb is a more accurate depiction. I got it. No wonder I had anxiety after 9/11. Only now, fifteen years later, am I able to see that it truly was a bit traumatizing for me.

It was so gripping and real and unnerving that I have not been back to New York — my place, my city, my home — in FIFTEEN years. For nearly ten years I knew this skyline. Even typing this I need to go back. What is wrong with me? How did I let this much time go by?

I’m somewhat embarrassed sharing this. I think that’s what this woman on Facebook was getting at — maybe embarrassed isn’t the right word for her, but she was grappling with trying to understand why she has such a strong reaction to all of it.

I was alive.

I was spared.

Others weren’t as fortunate.

My safety and freedom, things I very much took for granted before, were threatened.

Nowhere felt safe.

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I left my job at Delta shortly after.

My severance package went into effect the beginning of 2002.

Gil and I moved to Atlanta just as we planned, but I didn’t return to flying.

I told myself and others it was time to move on. I wanted to try different things and return to school.

These things were true, but I was also terrified.

To this day I break out in a cold sweat when I fly.

People told me to just get back on a plane as soon as possible. I did and it was hard. Every trip was hard.

The last plane trip I took was in January of 2005. Gil and I flew out to Denver to look at a potential job. On the way back to Atlanta, there was a problem with the landing gear. We ended up circling while the pilot repeatedly let the gear up and down as it screeched and moaned beneath the belly of the plane. I gripped Gil’s hand and swore I’d never get on another plane if I made it out alive.

We landed safely and I’ve kept my promise.

But I need to move on. I want to travel again. I miss airports. I want my children to have the opportunity to travel, and I’d like to join them.

It’s a process.

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New York didn’t let 9/11 break it, and neither will I.

I will visit again soon, and maybe I’ll take a flight there. Baby steps.

Before writing this I quickly looked through old pictures of my jet-setting days.

Maybe it’s taken fifteen years to heal. That’s okay.

I’m also blessed to be able to heal. So many others weren’t so fortunate.

I’m thankful and my heart aches.

I still crumble and feel the fear.

Let us never forget those who paid the ultimate price.

Every day is truly a gift.