Thread by @crizteeneeta

Where was I on 9/11? I was a 22 year old living in San Diego and still asleep when this happened, but this story, this day, still makes me so emotional! But this day for me, started 3 weeks before that...

(Long thread)

3 weeks or so, before 9/11, my mom had made spaghetti. Sorry, I remember stupid details like this. We were all sitting down now and I tell my mom about a dream I had and it really disturbed me. I still felt bad. I told her about how in my dream I saw planes falling out of the

Sky, and in some way, I felt like I was watching from above. I also felt like I was watching the planes from Tora! Tora! Tora! on a suicide mission. My mom was eating when she looked up at me in a kind of stunned 😳 look with noodles still in her mouth...

She is well mannered, so she finished chewing her food wiped her mouth and said something like “ well I had a dream too, but in my dream, I remember them crashing into buildings and she was in them...” I told my mom that it didn’t look like San Diego or Los Angeles...

She said she had never seen it either. We were kind of weirded out about it because it made us feel sick. I told her that in my dream I felt like I was above seeing everything. And what made me feel even worse was hearing people cry out in pain and burning...

I felt better talking about it but, I still felt the angst inside of me.

Flash forward to this day, 19 years ago...

My stepdad would work at like 5 am so he was up at 4, so was my mom. She couldn’t go back to sleep, ever...

It was her ritual to watch local news as she lay awake after my stepdad had left for work. At about 5:48 am or so, my mother runs into my room yelling “THEY ARE ATTACKING US!! WE’RE BEING ATTACKED BY TERRORISTS!!” I’m half asleep, and looking at my clock telling her

“I don’t have to be up until 6:30, why are you yelling get out of my room!” My mom is panicking and hysterical calling my stepdad at work. She sits at the end of the bed and turns on my tv, “LOOK!!” She yelled... I see @katiecouric and the World Trade Center on fire...

I started to rub my eyes, I sit up and I don’t know if you have ever been deaf for a few seconds from an explosion or an accident, but a chill ran through my body. I kept watching and my mom changed the channel, every channel was saying an explosion or a fire in the building...

One channel, I cannot remember which one, had an aerial view of New York and it was exactly as I saw it in my dream! I asked my mom if she was sure it was a plane? My mom said she knew it was it had to be! So she put it back to @katiecouric and as we’re watching her...

Just after 6 am, we watched live, United flight 175 fly into the second tower. We still had no idea, AA flight 11 was the one that flew into the first tower, but it was very obvious that it was a plane and we were under attack. I know my mom was 100% sure it was terrorism, I was

Not sure exactly what was going on and said something like, “what if it’s a cyber attack?! What if cyber terrorists are flying planes? Maybe they made the planes fall out of the sky?” My mom was adamant it was terrorists flying planes into the buildings...

Then we heard the news report and confirmed that it was 2 separate planes that flew into the towers. We didn’t have to hear what we already knew. I started to get ready for work, in a daze, really not feeling right, still felt helpless and sick inside.

Since I was little, I had told everyone I knew I wanted to be a pilot or an astronaut. How could I tell my mom this after I had applied for an airline to be a flight attendant? Maybe this was a sign, that it wasn’t a good idea to even do it anymore... I went off to work

After watching the pentagon being hit and both towers collapsing. I was still in shock and I don’t cry in front of others at all but I remember my drive into work, I had a Chevy Silverado, I got in and turned on the radio. I turned it to an am station to see if

There was any other news. The host on the station was choking up, as he recounted this morning. I remember it felt like slow motion, the Tuesday morning drive is usually full of traffic and it took me 20 minutes to get to Mission Gorge from Chula Vista, that never happens...

I remember seeing people in cars, like zombies. I wondered if they were hearing the radio like me. I got to work and my coworker Rosie is crying and hysterical. I thought she was being over dramatic but she’s trying to talk through her tears, she’s shaking.

She finally gets it out, “MY SISTER MY SISTER WORKS IN THE WORLD TRADE CENTER AND WE CANT REACH HER IT SAYS ALL CIRCUITS ARE BUSY!!” My heart sank! How could I have been an asshole thinking she was being dramatic...

She was on the phone with her parents, and we told her to go home. She didn’t want to, she said she needed normal and would go crazy at home not knowing anything, and her kids were already at school. She needed to distract herself. All morning she would butst into tears

Until finally, about 5 or 6 hours later her sister got through, she was on the subway when the first tower was hit and had the worst feeling. She decided not to go in.

For days I would fall asleep with my TV on praying i was woken to news that someone was rescued, but that

Didn’t happen.

We all know airlines were not doing that great and I forgot about my application. But a year later I got the call and they asked if I wanted to fly out to Virginia for an interview with the regional. I did and in February of 2003 I flew out to Dulles to start

My training. I remember after graduating, and starting my first flight. My pilots had 9/11 pins. I asked if they were working. One said, “I was in the RJ behind United 77 out of Dulles” the other said he was grounded in Toledo for 5 days. I met another flight attendant

Who was supposed to be on flight 175 and was on ready reserve, ready to time out when she got called out to fill in on a flight and still had her ticket stub. Another pilot who’s eyes filled with tears at the friends he lost that day.

The rampers, gate agents, ops I met

And were there that day. What they saw and who they saw for the last time. I still remember their stories, the way they made me feel...

Although I was on the other side of the country on this day, 19 years ago, September 11, changed me forever #NeverForget911

https://twitter.com/lakings/status/1304426975310884864?s=21

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