I woke up at 6:00 am in Sunnyvale, CA, so I could daytrade stocks that morning. On the message boards, I saw people talking about a plane having crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers. I turned on the television just in time to see the second plane hit the other tower. It was a sickening feeling.
I woke up my SO, who was sleeping, and told him. “I’m not sure what’s happening, but I think we’re under attack.” He didn’t believe me, so I dragged him in front of the tv. He was as stunned as I was.
At some point, I realized people were jumping, and I decided to go to work that day. I left early– I just couldn’t watch the live coverage anymore. Understand, I *like* videos of car chases, fires, and other exciting things, but this was too much. I wanted to rewind the last hour and wake up from what seemed like a horrible nightmare.
Work, where I was a PC tech at a local hospital, started out somber. It seemed like there were television sets everywhere. Apparently, it affected me (and everyone, I’m sure) pretty badly, as I didn’t sleep for 2 nights after it.
I still think about it sometimes at night, how awful it all was. I remembered they were trying to think of what to call the attacks: The World Trade Center Disaster, the Airline Terrorist Attacks, and so on. September 11th is the appropriate title for the day– it’s eerily beautiful and forboding at all once.