Breaking the Cycle

This is a post about 9/11 but it’s NOT going to be the usual…

I planned on writing a post to talk about this day, but I realized I had talked about it several times before. I have already talked about where I was and what happened on the day of the attack. The little ritual I do every year? It hasn’t changed, except that I got ‘United 93’ on blu-ray now. In all honesty, there really isn’t much that I can talk about that either I, or someone else, will have said. (And probably more eloquently than I…) then I realized there was one thing I could talk about- about rejoining.

With the exception of the morning and evening of 9/11, I have not worked on that day the last 10 years. (Back when it happened I worked overnights, hence the morning and night.) Mostly it was the luck of my days off coinciding, but there were a couple times I took personal leave days. My justification was that I used the time to honor those who died, to spend time reflecting on what happened and what I could possibly do to make sure it never happened again. It sounds good…

But it’s not really the truth.

If I had a face to face with you the last 10 or so months, one thing I have mentioned is that 2011 is the year everything changes for me. For the first time in a long time I feel optimistic about the future, kinda ironic considering the state of the world. I have a viable long term plan. I am moving onto better things and a better station in life, even though one of the big changes will actually now happen early next year, due to my own stupidity. A lot has gone for the better for me. And last March I woke up and realized I needed another change:

I had to take 9/11 back.

You see, the truth was I wasn’t taking the day off out of respect. I have the morning ritual to do that. No, I wasn’t working it out of fear. I was afraid how I would act working that day. The last time I did work it, the evening that happened, I have very little recollection of the shift. I was just an emotional wreck. The only thing I DO remember was nearly (verbally) tearing the head off one of the store supervisors for being rather chipper and having the gall to ask me why I looked so tired and upset, like he was oblivious to what had happened 18 hours earlier. So I steeled myself to do this. It was time to deal with this. Time to truly heal.

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuut-

A funny thing happened between then and now. As part of changing myself for the better, I seized and opportunity to transfer to a better position that I liked. One of the advantages was the new days off: Sundays and Mondays, meaning I now got at least part of the weekend off and since most holidays fell on Mondays, extra personal holidays to use at my leisure. The unintended side effect is that since 9/11 falls this year on a Sunday…

Oh well. And so go the great plans of mice and men.

But this will not deter me from my goal. When my schedule has me working on that day, I will work it. Because sometimes the best ways to honor the dead is not by stopping your life-

But actually LIVING it, even the mundane parts.