So, I'm watching
MTV and I see my former
high school (1991-1994) on
MTV News. The school is several blocks from where the
Twin Towers used to be and had been unavailable for weeks following
September 11, 2001 (the students and teachers were relocated to a school in
Brooklyn temporarily).
MTV decided it was newsworthy that the school was reopening and followed the class president through his day. It's really surreal to see your high school on MTV (and on CNN on September 11, when the building was evacuated). Being 2000 miles away, seeing MY school like that...it's so bizarre.
And part of me is angry that MTV would do something so trite and sappy and insignificant (well, yeah...I guess that's to be expected from MTV...) while at least one of my former classmates lost his life on September 11 (one confirmed; he was working at Cantor Fitzgerald).
I've moved on from September 11, and the flashbacks I had to 1993, when I was in school when the World Trade Center bomb exploded several blocks away.
I can't express how strange it is to see your high school on MTV, and how distant and alone it all makes me feel. I want to go down there and see and feel the school and know it's still there. And to find all my former classmates...and hell, anyone I've ever known, and know they're safe. Yet, here I am in Florida, removed from anything I've known.
My credit card has a picture of the World Trade Center on it. Last week, I had to argue with someone who wouldn't accept it. He thought it was a joke or something. It's a strange time to be a displaced New Yorker.
Or maybe it's just a strange time to be me...