I remember it plain as day. My sisters and I met at Great Adventure (aka Six Flags) for a day of riding roller coasters. It was Sept. 9, 2001. We had a good time, and for once I kept my nosiness in check and didn't ask my older sister if she was pregnant yet. I didn't even think twice to say anything when she, after standing on an hour line, side stepped getting on the roller coaster (turns out she was pregnant, but so early, she wasn't sure).
It was a fun day. Me, both my sisters and their husbands, a boyfriend who was slowly becoming kind of serious, and endless roller coasters. We even had a group photo taken on the Great American Scream Machine. We rode Rolling Thunder, like, a half-dozen times because we heard it was being retired.
When the park announced it was closing, it was just the then-boyfriend and I left from our crew, and I actually ran across the amusement park to ride the Nitro one more time, just to prove to myself that it was indeed much better than Medusa.
On the drive home, I fell asleep on the Jersey Turnpike, but then-boyfriend woke me up in time to see the Twin Towers majestically looking over us. I recall being struck by the number of windows randomly lit up at 10 p.m. on a Sunday night. One thing I have always loved about the New York skyline is how many people are there. Each window illuminated, each headlight, represented another person. All those lights put in perspective that I am just one of many. And my problems are much smaller than others.
It was the last time I saw the Twin Towers in real life. We all know what happened just 36 hours later.
The next night, or rather the early morning of 9/11, I had a very vivid dream. I was on a children's playground with other women -- mothers -- who were running to scoop up their children and hold them close to their chest. It was a bizarre dream and in the moment, I chalked up to my biological clock ticking, but would haunt me for months.
It is hard to believe 10 years have passed.
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