September 11

This is always a hard day for me. On the one hand, I hate that so many people make it into a glurge-y kind of thing, complete with saccarine-filled schmaltz. On the other hand, it's hard not to. There is so much sadness surrounding the events of this day. I lost 3 high school friends when the towers went down. I was lucky enough to have all my family and friends stay safe. Some of them live in Manhattan, and my step-daughter was stationed at Fort Belvoir, VA and frequently attended meetings at the Pentagon. I remember being terrified all day, until I heard that my family were ok. Then I felt guilty because I was so grateful, when so many people lost so many of their loved ones.

Everything changed for me that day. I appreciate my family more, or at least I try to. After that day, I started to examine my life, and to ask myself if I was where I wanted to be, and if not, what I had to do to get there.

I started to think about going to law school again.

Of course, 4 years later, my personal world stood on its head again, but I always think of 9/11 as starting the examination process.

2001 was a watershed year for me in other ways, too. My son graduated high school in the beginning of June. My step-son was incarcerated at the end of June. My grandmother died in July. While I was at her funeral, my old, beloved cat started sliding into her final illness. We put her down a week after I got home from Gram's funeral. I got another cat, Miss Kitty (aka Kit-Kat. Just can't bring myself to call her that). My husband and I started to go through a rough patch that year.

Watershed. Big-time.

Some things got better, some got worse. Steve and I got better, then he got sick. Miss Kitty is now my forever friend, although it was a tough adjustment for me -- she's not like Loco, my old cat, in any way. My step-son gets out sometime in the next few weeks, we hope. My son is all grown up, working at a very good job that he loves, and is getting married in about a month.

Life happens all the time, whether we're ready or not. And I just keep swimming.