Apparently This is an Annual Thing

Around this time last year I wrote this post. It was a follow up to this post from the year before. I guess every January I have to look back at my life and wonder, "What the hell happened? And what the hell am I going to do now?"

2011 was a difficult year and I'm glad to see it gone... It was very stressful, but it wasn't all bad. Looking back I have quite a few lovely memories...

• I went snow tubing!
• My bar closed. This was extremely depressing and I miss it terribly.
• I went to Boston to visit my very first friend from college. Hanging out with him and his awesome friends was probably one of the best weekends of the year. Nothing but love!
• My boss left my organization. The Development Department consisted of only me for a few months.
• I went to Maryland to babysit my sister for a few days while my very lucky parents went to France. She and I get along splendidly when my parents aren't around, it's really amazing...
• I organized a few events for work all by myself and did quite well, if I do say so myself.
• I went to the beach A LOT over the summer. AND I LOVED IT.
• Nick finished his pre-med program FINALLY. And he got an excellent score on the MCAT. We started pondering potential relocation to other cities for med school...
• Then he and I went to his cousin's wedding on Long Island and had a blast with his ridiculously fun family.
• I went to Ireland with my family for two weeks. It was so beautiful and is truly a magical place, but the weather is horrific. At least I took a lot of excellent pictures. 1,400 of them to be exact.
• I got a new boss and he's awesome!
• Nick and I went to my cousin's wedding in Michigan. Our complete debauchery made it clear that we are still extremely immature and no one should invite us anywhere.
• That same weekend we ended up stuck in Detroit because of the hurricane on the East Coast and realized that Detroit is truly the city that God forgot. I hope I never have to go back. EVER.
• My beautiful mother turned 60 while we were in the armpit of the Midwest (sorry, Mom). To cheer her up I made her an amazing photo book of her life. I am such a good daughter! Even though I slacked off so I had to give it to her at Christmas. Oops.
• I turned 26. I went to see my favorite band Beirut on the night of my birthday, which was absolutely magical. Then I tried to have a birthday party at a bar and just ended up depressed. I'm old!
• The aforementioned first friend from college came to visit NYC and since he is politically active and silly things like that, we went to Occupy Wall Street for a little while. It was interesting enough, but we soon left for beer and burgers, because we have our priorities straight.
• I had a very successful gala for my organization which was about 100 times better and less stressful than last year. I actually got drunk afterwards! It was GREAT!
• I went home for Thanksgiving and kept things fairly quiet and only hung out with one friend. And I'm grateful that he's such a good friend after literally 13 years.
• That weekend my cousin had her engagement party. It was so incredibly lovely that I had to have 7 glasses of wine to deal with the beauty of it all. I don't want anyone to grow up but I think I'm okay with this...
• I went home for Christmas. I saw my best friends and both of my wonderful grandmothers and realized how very lucky I am. I got an iPad that I'm pretty sure my sister tricked my dad into buying. Good job, kid!
• Speaking of my little baby sister, she turned 13 and it has absolutely traumatized me. I keep looking at the picture on my shelf of me holding her when I'm 17 and she is 4 and I can't believe where the time has gone.
• An old friend and his darling girlfriend came to New York on December 30th and we saw one of my favorite bands from college. It was the perfect way to end the year.
• I had a very quiet New Year's Eve with lovely people, just the way I wanted it.

On the schedule for this year....

• I will attend four weddings in June, July, August, and September. Oh. My. God.
• In October I'll go to a family reunion of my mother's side of the family.They will be Irish. They will be Catholic. They will be crazy. They will be drunk. There will be hundreds of them. And they will all look like me. This will be weird.
• Hopefully I will visit my best friend and her boyfriend in Florida and watch them revel in the early days of cohabitation. Hopefully I will do this soon, while it's still cold in NYC but nice and warm on the gulf coast...
• I also hope to visit this crazy lady and her girlfriend in Raleigh and see an old friend of my parents' as well. And I'll wonder once again why I don't live in the South because everyone is so nice and the weather is splendid.
• I will also try my very best to head west to see if "Portlandia" is an accurate depiction of a city that is called home by a dear friend from New York, an old friend from high school, new friends from Bonnaroo, two aunts I haven't seen in much too long, a number of tiny cousins I've never met, and another cousin who was a little girl the last time I saw her and is now a gorgeous teenager. Wow.
• If all goes as planned, Nick will start medical school in the Fall. After many months of contemplating the merits of other US cities, I realize I am terrified to leave New York. I am crossing my fingers that he gets into a school in the city so we never, ever, EVER have to leave. Please please please please please!
• Hopefully I will finally buckle down and apply to grad school. I know I want to do an MPA, but I'm again considering if I should pair it with an MSW just for the background knowledge that would entail. I don't want to be a social worker anymore, I know that for certain. But I am interested in the experience... Luckily I know that the MPA is where it's at for me, hands down. I just really need to work my ass off this year in my new role!
• I also need to save tons of money so I can FINALLY go to France and/or Germany like I've been talking about because I need a goddamn European vacation.
• Also I was reminded last night by a very good friend that I had always planned to go volunteer in India. He told me I should probably do it before I have kids. Thanks for the advice, buddy. I said I'd check out Central America...
• I think we're going to get another kitten. YES!!!!

Life is too short. I hope you've stopped reading by now. Good night.

Remembrance

Everyone remembers where they were on this day 9 years ago. As my mother so aptly put it, "This is your Kennedy." She recounted to me her own story of that terrifying day when she learned the President had been shot when she was home sick from school. She said I would never forget, because it is one of those moments, one of those days, that will be forever trapped in your memory. A small part of you will always be that self you were when it happened.

I was 11 days away from turning 16, having just started my junior year of high school. As I gear up for my 25th birthday, I realize how this was such a milestone at the time. I remember how excited I was at the prospect of driving, how I was going to try for an editor position on the high school paper, and how my parents were soon going to depart for Kazakhstan to pick up the black-haired toddler who would become my sister. My school was in a small rural town, so set apart from the rest of the world, and we lived our lives in truly blissful ignorance of the outside world. At 16, not much else mattered. I don't remember what my first period class was, I just remember that when I stopped at my locker to pick up my books for second period, there was a strange anxiety in the air. Kids still laughed and flirted and yelled and chatted--I was one of those kids--but so many others hurried to class anxiously that it was plain that there was something amiss.

I first heard from a girl named Laura--our last names meant that our alphabetized lockers were right next door. She stooped to get her books with a harried expression, and when I asked what was going on, she looked up at me with a twinge of annoyance for not knowing what had happened, but also with great fear. I will never forget her eyes. I don't recall her exact words, but it was someting along the lines of, "Didn't you hear? Someone blew up a building in New York. It's all over the news."

In my Photography class, the teacher had already turned on the TV, and all I could see were soaring buildings surrounded by billowing smoke. I don't think the second plane had hit yet. Perhaps it had, but for me, the events of the day become more and more unclear, just fleeting images and sounds accompanied by a sinking feeling of dread and above all, confusion. All we knew was that buildings were burning in New York and no one knew why. Teachers herded stray students into their classrooms--the school was on lockdown. The principal made a tearful announcement telling us a terrible thing had happened and that we could keep our TVs on and to stay in our classrooms. When we learned about the attack on the Pentagon, just an hour south of our little town, we were truly terrified. But there are a few moments that stand out clearly...

CNN or some other news network reported that the attacks were the work of terrorists--Muslim terrorists. Most of us knew of only one Muslim student in our school. A boy at my work table, with anger and ignorance in his voice, said that this student was "going down." I immediately responded with harsh scolding, defending the poor teenager who had nothing to do with the tragic events of the day and who I realized with regret was soon going to be a target of misplaced hatred. Our school was at least 90% white, our town was small and conservative, and anyone who was different stuck out like a sore thumb--we didn't need a terrorist attack to single out this student even more. The boy who had made the remark immediately recanted, saying he was just kidding, but the damage was done. I look back on this now and realize that this gut reaction of a scared 16-year-old boy, and my strong defense of the only Muslim person I knew, a person I was not even friends with, was a premonition of things to come. This was my first inclination that while our country was united in grief, it would soon become divided along lines of race and religion.

I remember finding my best friend at the time and escaping with her to the bathroom, where we could find a little peace from the crush of emotional reactions occurring in the hallway. We had few direct connections to New York--she had a friend from summer camp who lived in Manhattan, I had a cousin who was a senior at NYU. Neither of us had any idea of the layout of the city, if there would be any chance that either of them would have been caught in the attacks. Luckily, Stuy High and NYU are not in the Financial District. But at the time, we just knew that the girls' bathroom provided a place to slump against the wall with a few other girls, I don't remember if we knew them well or not, and just cry. I did not like crying in front of others, and I felt a twinge of resentment for the girls who wandered the halls rubbing at their eyes and hugging their friends as if they personally knew people in the towers. I thought it seemed like they were doing it for attention. So like all high school girls in all high school movies, the bathroom provided solace, a place for emotions to come gushing out, until a teacher came and quietly shooed us out with pity in her eyes.

Later that day in Journalism class, my teacher seized the opportunity for us to really learn something about reporting, and we devoted an entire special issue of the paper to the attacks. This was a big deal at the time, and a therapeutic way for all of us to deal with the events in a strangely professional and productive way. I was given the assignment of writing the front page article, so I called up my teacher's cousin or brother or friend, I don't recall which, who lived in New York, and did my first real interview, getting all the gritty details I could about what it was like to be in a city under siege. I later realized that this assignment was a test, as I was eventually given the position of News Editor (which was to directly lead to Editor in Chief). With that, my 16-year-old ambition to be a high school newspaper editor was fulfilled, the same as it would have without the attacks. And thus life went on.

I don't remember the rest of the day. It was a Tuesday, so I was probably going to a dance class of some sort after school. Maybe I just went straight home with my mother, I don't know. But in the months and years following the attacks, I could feel the world changing, and I changed with it. This was probably my first real awakening to how the United States was viewed by the rest of the world. They didn't all love us or want to be like us or want to live within our borders--they wanted to kill us. The patriotic rampage began. People plastered their cars with ribbons and flags, they started hating the French, your love of God and country was questioned if you questioned President Bush (which I did, all the time), I attended a peace rally in Washington, D.C., and my graduating class joined the Army in droves and were swiftly deployed to Iraq. Then I went off to college in New York City...and I'm still here.

That day is still so clear for so many people--their grief and fear is real, and sadly, this makes Islamophobia strong. The mosque near Ground Zero has started a firestorm of both criticism and support. A Muslim taxi driver was recently stabbed because of his religion by a drunken 21-year-old white kid. Glenn Beck held a rally on the anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream Speech," making a mockery of the civil rights movement and progress in general. A redneck Florida pastor threatened to burn the Quran, and actually received attention from President Obama and General Petraeus--now he says he won't do it. Speaking of the President, far too many stupid people believe that he's Muslim, largely because they want a reason to hate him.

Do you remember how hate and fear caused these attacks in the first place? Please, America, don't give anyone, anywhere, any more reasons to hate us. I don't want another day like this to stick in my memory forever, forcing me to forever be 16. This is a day I will never forget--no one will, though we might want to. We owe it to all those who perished and all those who lost loved ones to always remember. But I don't want to remember another day like this. Please let it remain the only one.