9.11.11

AYNSLEY:
I had a difficult time beginning to write tonight. I feel like I should have something eloquent to say on the 10th anniversary of September 11th, but the truth is that I have always felt disconnected to those events. In 2001, I had never visited New York City and the images I had were so romantic, so far away that it may as well have been a different country. In the six and a half years that I have lived in New York, I have made this city my own. I know my hot spots, where I love to be, where I find energy, where I find peace. And still, even though I suppose I am now a New Yorker, I feel disconnected to those events.

Gary's first job out of college was on the 68th floor of tower 2. He hadn't worked there in over a year when the planes hit, but he can never feel disconnected from those events. In hearing him mention that job in the first few months of dating him, came as close as I ever will to connecting with those events, but I still can't think of it as anywhere near my tragedy. But today still weighed heavy on me, feeling the shift in energy in the city and knowing how many people are truly mourning.

Back in my own little life, my attention was on my family, as ever. The Pea doing her aqueous aerobics, my mom struggling to breathe. It's hard to reconcile the reality of this situation. So I just take it one day at a time. Today, Mom got to hear stories of my bellybutton's last days as an innie, of the Pea in constant motion and how Gary is still way more worried about her with the shingles than himself (which Dad said was a good sign of prepping to be a good dad). Mom teased me about the tattoo on my belly, asking how it's looking these days (for the record, it's going to look awesome until after I deliver and then it will be the stupidest thing ever. Oh, well, I guess it's good incentive for The Pea never to get a tattoo), but she sounded tired, too. She decided not to walk today, for the first time in a very long time, because she was just too tired. She's been sleeping a lot and she coughed up some more blood. They nearly doubled her oxygen intake today because even with it going 24/7, her blood oxygen levels were too low. She feels better now that she's getting more, but whatever is going on in her lungs is getting worse, not better.