9/11

9/11.

i actually didn't really take a lot of time to process the fact that we had hit the 7-year anniversary. i recognized the date, moved on, and got on with my busy day. work has been a little insane this week, so there wasn't a lot of time to sit and let something like this sink in.

every morning, our company sends out an e-mail to all employees, usually asking some kind of revealing question that people can answer and then it's included in the company e-newsletter later in the day. it's a "get to know your employees" type thing and it's generally pretty interesting. it's a little thing, but it helps you get to know people i never see in real life (since 2/3 of our company works in dallas and i've never met them).

today's question was "where were you when you first heard about the attacks on 9/11?"

i could write pages and pages on this question. i could write every little nuanced detail about that day. i remember more things about 9/11/01 than i remember about yesterday. it's just one of those things that lock into your brain and never lets go.

anyway, around noon the responses came back and they were overwhelming. so many people had responded. so many people felt the NEED to respond.. even today, seven years later. i read the responses and there were a myriad of different stories, a lot of them similar to my own. i just remember as i read them, all the noise and the clutter dropped out of my head and i was just totally caught up in these different stories and recollections. my own memories came flooding back as well.

so here we are seven years later. bush is still our president. we're fighting seemingly endless wars. there are still two holes where the towers stood. the whole thing just has me feeling sad.

i hope in november i can start feeling hopeful about things again.

i am not a very political person, but i believe more than ever, we have a responsibility to fix all the wrongs we've done in the world in the last eight years. we have to repair the damage done, domestically and abroad, especially the wrongs done in the name of september 11th.

i don't know, i'm not trying to get overly political here.

i believe in a government's job to protect its citizens and provide security, but i also believe in protecting freedom, and the minute we compromise someone's civil liberties or we start bending the rules, we're no better than the people we're trying to defend ourselves against.

okay, stopping now. vote for obama. the end.