Curse of the off-year anniversary

Tomorrow marks six years since 9-11 literally and figuratively rocked our world. While the media care about the nice round numbered anniversary (one-year, 10-year, 15-year, 50-year) those other years, well, just don't sound sexy.

That said, for me, the anniversary-- off year or not -- is not about the usual rehash that always comes with any anniversary, but about how I woke up that morning and, with my little sister (who had turned 18 the day before) watched as the safe America we always knew came apart. Sure, it was just the destruction of our idea of America as a safe place, but it felt as real as the towers going down. America's a dangerous enough place what with the speeders on cell phones, drunk drivers, West Nile virus and gang bangers. But that day it was as if it was if the historical bloody and dangerous places from the movies -- the London of IRA attacks, the Israel of car bombs, the Colombia of the 1990s -- had somehow leaked from our TV screens into real life. I remember driving home from work that afternoon convinced the next bomb was meant for L.A. Absolutely convinced that with that one breach, the dam would burst. I couldn't sleep for days worrying about it. I mentally imagined various emergency procedures and the things I would need to survive them. I put Rollerblades in my car's trunk, along with water, food and reading material; you never know where or for how long you will get stuck.

But then I got over it, and I forgot. Life's funny that way. That's why I like anniversaries. For for a few minutes on one day a year, I can remember how Earth shattering an event that was, and how I thought I would never get over it. And then I did.