If you're already sick of Osama Bin Laden stuff, feel free to skip this post. It's not going to be funny. It's not going to be about political anything or who deserves credit or what. It's not about speculation or celebration or anything. It's about my own reaction, which surprised even me.
We were cruising iTunes last night and Spike saw something on his newsfeed that said that President Obama was going to have a big announcement on TV. My stomach sort of dropped, because for a split-second, I was absolutely convinced that the big announcement was going to be that aliens had landed. I was trying to figure out if I should wake up the kids and drag them into a closet, fashioning tin-foil hats for us all and filling up water pistols along the way, because I have watched a lot of M. Night Shymalan movies. ("Swing away, Merrill. Swing away.") Logic and reason took over again fairly quickly, so I figured this was an announcement about the NATO strike and the death of Gaddafi's son. (I have no idea if I spelled that correctly or not.)
When we heard the news (I think we missed the actual announcement by about five minutes), my heart leapt up in my throat and the only thing I could say was "Thank God." All I felt was relief. I felt sort of giddy with it. We watched the celebrations on CNN and talked mainly about the crowds themselves (especially the cheerleaders outside the White House. That was freakin' weird. They were doing stands and stuff). And then we tried to go to bed. I didn't end up going to sleep until about 4:00am. I had made the mistake of reading my Facebook newsfeed as I was laying down, and I couldn't stop thinking about it. I had mixed feelings, and I was surprised at myself, because I thought my reaction was going to be cut-and-dried. Not that I ever expected this day to come. I fully expected Osama bin Laden to die of natural causes and we, the people of the world, would never know. Al Qaeda surely wouldn't tell, so he would just continue being a boogeyman for all of us until the end of time.
A little history would probably be good here. On 9/11, I was almost seven months pregnant with my first child. Even though I was miles and miles away from the Twin Towers (and at that point, had never even visited NYC), I cried for days. Osama bin Laden was a particular source of anxiety for me. I remember telling Spike that I was absolutely terrified of him. I felt really silly for being as overwrought as I was, but I just sort of chalked it up to being pregnant, and eventually stopped crying. I never really felt like I had the right to be as upset as I was, because I didn't know anybody in those towers. I didn't live in NYC. I'd never even been there. In short, I felt like a dumbass - like one of those people who try to inject themselves into every situation, whether it concerns them or not. I was jumpy about planes in the sky once the planes started flying again. I was just all-around freaked out. But I did get over myself and get on with things, obviously.
And then, last September, I went to Ground Zero.
It was my third trip to NYC. There wasn't a lot to be seen at Ground Zero at that point - the construction fences had been put up, and they were working away, so really it just looked like any building site. But I and two of my friends went to the little Ground Zero Center sort of catty-corner from the construction. And once we got in there, I started crying again.
I didn't expect to. I expected to look at everything and be okay, but I cried in public and I hate crying in public. I hate it so much. It always makes me feel like an idiot, and I felt like an extra-supreme idiot for the same reason I did almost ten years ago. I hadn't been there. I had no right to be upset. My friend Amanda lived in NYC at the time. She would have had a right to cry, if she'd been there with us. I did not.
Cheri, my friend from Canada (hi, Cheri!), wanted to go across the street to the little church where the first responders had gone throughout all of the rescue efforts for respite. We got over there and I couldn't go in. I absolutely could not face it. So I sat on a bench in the pretty little churchyard and looked out over all the very old graves dating back to the 1700s and waited for Cheri and Jill to come out and get me. Then we went on with our day and I was fine.
This morning, I cried in public again. I didn't cry for Osama bin Laden, because I'm really having a hard time dredging up any sympathy for him. I cried because of this picture.
I saw it on Buzzfeed. I don't know why this affected me so much, but I just sat at a picnic table in the cold wind outside the building where my 10:30 class is held and cried.
I don't have any answers. I don't have a pat thing to say, like that Mark Twain quote that's going around right now. I just keep thinking that if it's making me cry, what must the other people be feeling right now? The survivors and the widows and widowers and kids who lost one or both parents?
I can't celebrate. I don't really have that in me, I don't think. It's just amazing how much stuff can be raked up inside yourself, even almost ten years later. Imagine being someone who really has something to be raked up.
Well said, Heather. Well said.
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