A Different World

32 years ago when I was born... the world was just getting to know Star Wars...

Al Gore hadn't yet invented the Internet...

Reality tv... what's that?

Today is a different day.  And this is the world Baby Edwards will be born into. 

A popular topic in DC is "where were you on September 11th?"  The majority of my peers were here.  We were all just starting out; 2-3 years into living in DC, and just starting to feel like Washingtonians.  We were starting to grow into our framilies (friend families), and just getting to the place where we turned to each other before we turned to others.

It's hard to believe it was almost 10 years ago that my Votehere colleagues were in town, and we were sitting over breakfast at the Madison Hotel, planning for a day of meetings and a huge reception on the Hill... but starting off with a meeting at the Pentagon.

It's hard to believe the conversation started at breakfast with a small tourism plane crashing into one of the Twin Towers, and listening to the story unfold.

It's hard to believe it was almost 10 years ago that I got in a separate cab as my colleagues, told him where I was headed, and he pointed to the smoke in the sky across the bridge at the Pentagon, and said "where else"?

It's hard to believe that 3-4 hours later, I was sitting on my front stoop in the heart of Capitol Hill, unable to make a phone call because the circuits had all crashed, and feeling completely alone in a city of a million people.

It's hard to believe when I went to the neighborhood watering spot that evening that I wasn't the only one without a car who had no other place to go.  We sat every-other-stool... every-other-table... fixtated on the tv, and not another sound in the room.

It's hard to believe that was the day that most of the world finally learned who Osama bin Laden was.

And its hard to believe he has captivated our country's psyche for over a decade.

It's hard to make it through the day today without taking the time to thank the men and women in uniform who knowing all this, chose to serve to protect our country.  Who choose to run in, when we run out.

At work today, there was a fire drill.  Probably caused by someone burning their panini in the lunchspot downstairs.

But unsettling.

I took the time to thank the firefighters who were running up the steps, as I was complaining my way down them.

Thank you to the people who are more courageous than I will ever be for making baby Edwards' world a little safer today.