I love that dirty water...

It's been 11 1/2 years since September 11, 2001. I'm 11 1/2 years older and hopefully 11 1/2 years wiser. However, today took me back to that moment when I saw the plane hit the second tower...but this time it was in my backyard. My home.

I was 15 years old on 9/11. I remember watching in horror as my previously safe little world collapsed around me. I had to face the fact that the world isn't the safe place I had hoped it was, and I grew up in a world prior generations knew nothing about. Taking my shoes off and going through serious security before boarding a plane has just always been, and I don't really remember going through the scanners without it. Heightened security and restrictions became the norm, and people younger than me don't remember or never really experienced a lack of security, whether for better or worse. While I still believed that there was good in everyone, it was now accompanied with a high level of suspicion of all humanity.

I'll admit, I didn't really cry when the towers fell. I didn't cry when I saw the Pentagon in flames. I was shaken and I was scared, but it wasn't near me. It wasn't real.

Today, shit got real. 

I didn't even know what happened until friends in Pennsylvania and New Jersey started texting and calling me to find out where I was and if I was alive or hurt. I cried watching the news as pandemonium broke out in Copley Square. I bawled as I kept hitting redial on my phone trying to get a hold of everyone I knew who was near the Boston Marathon today, answering texts in between rings with a hasty "I'm not in the city. I'm safe" as more people were demanding to know if I was ok. Cell service was in and out at best, making it hard to track people down, let alone quickly. I freaked when I couldn't find my brother for hours and became even more hysterical watching streets I walked hundreds to thousands of times run red with blood and appendages of the injured.

Today, my world fell apart.

I would never be so bold as to compare one tragic event to another, as every tragedy in which even one human life is lost is horrific. But for me, Marathon Monday, April 15, 2013, was my personal 9/11, and I'm sure many Bostonians would say the same. I've spent the rest of my day going back and forth between tears, anger, shock, and back around again. 

Today, however, Boston has shown her true colors. Marathon runners sprinted even further to hospitals after running 26.2 miles to donate blood. Other runners, along with bystanders and volunteers, turned and ran toward the blasts to help the wounded, without regard for their own safety. Despite the mayhem, there was a glimmer of the kind of humanity I have always believed existed. Despite all of this, we're going to come out stronger. 

I love Boston. I love my home.