Thread by @EmilyRowe69

I’m going to post this tonight because I have purposely planned a day away from screens tomorrow. It is the 20th anniversary of 9/11 down here in Australia and I am going to pack a picnic and spend it at the idyllic Rainbow Bay. Today has been a slow sink into the PTSD that 2/

has shaped my life since that day. What can I tell you? 6:45am I arise to feed George Eliot my cat. I amble half asleep to the kitchen and put the coffee on. 7:10 am- showered and and sitting with my first double shot coffee and cigarette of the day. Turn the tube on 3/

for NY1 news with the temperature on the bottom left corner. I never seem to get the layers right otherwise. It was unseasonably warm. The sky was a perfect blue. Also get updates on the subway delays because from here on 5th St I have options. I can get the F line from 2nd at 4/

Houston then swap for the ACE at West 4th that gets me to 42nd St and 8th Avenue. Or if there is delays, hop on the NR at 8th and Broadway that’ll take me to 42nd St and Broadway. Usually I settle for the F and today I’m on time and so is the subway. 7:20 am - headlines read 5/

And I’ve made my CD selection for the day. Strap on the disc man, pat the cat, double lock the door and barrel down the stairwell with Madonnas “Nobody’s Perfect” echoing through my head. 7:28am I’ve arrived at 2nd Ave having held back the nausea from the smell of cooking 6/

garbage on the street. It’s still hot in the city. The scramble out of the subway doors at West 4th is such an ordeal you have to check your anger or it’ll explode like a powder keg. Better to dissociate and accept you’ll be slightly mailed by at least 50 strangers every day 7/

before you’ve even gotten to work. I order my coffee and a toasted bagel from the guy at the corner deli and he doesn’t even make eye contact for me to smile my thanks. He’s worn out with everybody’s breakfast demands. As I walk in the building the doorman tells me excitedly 8/

that a plane has crashed into the World Trade Center. I look up at the beautiful clear blue sky. That’s odd I think. And the elevator moves. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20 and I’m at work. Unlock the doors. Flick on the lights. I am imagining a small 9/

seaplane has hit the tower. Like a fly settled on the window.
We miss you the missing. I watched your posters hopefully plastered all over New York. All those smiling portraits of the ‘missing’. Blindsided on a regular NY Autumn day. I watched them as they faded. As the 10/

print bled in the rain and your faces vanished around us. Just like that. My heart goes out to everyone in the city that day. We were numb. Traumatised. Shocked. Breathing in the smell of burning flesh and needless destruction. Waiting for the other shoe to drop. The sky 11/

thick with fighter jets. The streets silent as the first big snow of Winter but for Secret Service cars. Then the National Guard. The hospitals stood with empty ambulances outside. There were no survivors to ferry to the ICU. No blood donations necessary. We were all helpless 12/

In the face of such horror.
And are you going to make it out alive? Is this just the first wave of attacks? Who knows what you are even breathing in?
When the end of your life seems imminent it’s astonishing how many regrets you never really thought about come charging out 13/

of the blue. How meaningless and inarticulate and nebulous your bumbling meandering through precious time has been. As far as reports go- we only get one life. Trauma has taught me that I need to be a little afraid of what I’m doing or trying to do. It keeps me brave. I can 14/

no longer be seduced by the illusion of security. I only feel safe in my ethics and values. Everything else is illusory. We are seeing trauma playing out on a large scale at the moment with this pandemic. Life as we knew it is just a nostalgic memory. Much like my NY before 15/

9/11. And I grieved. I also stepped up and out into a different life. But I miss that time in my life. What a wild time. Just the night before I was at an AIDS outreach fundraiser at Sotheby’s, shepherding Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick thru a frenzied crowd. It 16/

was at the height of Sex in the City and The Producers on Broadway. They hadn’t brought a security detail and I was handed the job. Nathan Lane, Barbara Walters, Candice Bergen. It was a whose who of NY celebrity. I finished the night with a couple of girlfriends drinking 17/

cocktails at a rooftop bar. The city that never sleeps. That’s my last memories of the before NY.
We all lost our innocence on 9/11. But many people lost a whole lot more. #911Anniversary #NeverForget #IloveNY #grief #trauma #memories

@threadreaderapp unroll