Where were you?

Undoubtably this week someone has asked you "Where were you?" The curious wish to know what you were doing when you first heard about the attacks on 9/11/01. This memory is burned into each one of us...there are few people who can't remember exactly where they were, who they were with, what they were thinking and where they waited to hear more news. But has anyone asked you where you were on September 12? Doubtful. Does anyone remember where they were or what they did the day after 9/11? Probably not. I went back to school, back to class...the attacks were brought up, but it was business as usual in most of our lives. Many can remember the days following 9/11 because they were trapped in airports or stranded at overseas destinations, but what do you really remember about 9/12?

This "day-after" syndrome as I will refer to it is our national defense mechanism. It is a shared characteristic amoung the millions of people still in shock because of the horrific events from the day before. How many of your parents or grandparents talk about what they were doing on December 8, following the attack on Pearl Harbor? Most "day after" recollections are left-over from the day before. Why? Because most of the "day after" we were all still reliving the day before, whether we were aware of it or not. Reliving those moments when we first saw those two great towers aflame. The "day after" is a mix of saddness, anger and confusion.

Emotion clouds all of our memories. What were you doing the day after your significant other proposed to you? Where were you the day after a loved one died? What were you thinking thd day after your high school graduation? Most people don't remember, emotion clouds the memory...they are still caught up in the emotion of the day it happened, busy processing everything -- storing every detail of the emotional moment away.

Perhaps this is for the best. The day after always lags...it can never be as good or a memorable as the day before. In fact in many ways, the day after is almost always worse. The day after 9/11 we were getting body counts and grim facts about the attacks. The day after a proposal the enormity of wedding plans start to sink in. The day after the death of a loved one you are left with only memories of the good times. So perhaps this "day after" syndrome, while on the onset appears to be a design flaw, is actually the greatest gift of all. Would we be able to go through life as we do if we all remembered with as great of detail the day after major events as we did when they happened. What would life be like if we carried around the anguish of our feelings of 9/12 the way we carry our memories of the day before?

So that is the purpose of this post...the day after. It is the day after that we should truly remember what happened. Try to think about where you were the day after to find your true feelings about any situation. Or perhaps...try that tomorrow.

Cheers,
mE