Secrets from 9/11

I've tried to avoid most social networks today, just like I've tried to avoid writing the usual and expected 9/11 tribute post. It's not that I'm not patriotic. I'm just patriotic in a different way than most people.

And I didn't want to see all the references to 9/11. Not only do I have grief on a national level due to what happened ten years ago today, I have grief on a personal level from losing my third husband four years ago today.

I remember it as clear as if it were yesterday, standing by the television in that hospital room, watching all the tributes. We had all been in the whirlwind that happens when you have a family member that is terminally ill. Things sneak up on you. You forget things. Someone said, "Oh, it is September 11th, isn't it?" I looked over at my husband, lying in a hospital bed. Dying. And there was nothing I could do. I've never felt so helpless in my whole life as I did right then and there.

And just at that moment, he looked me in the eyes. And out of the blue, just like a plane hitting a building, I knew. This is the day. He's gonna go today. A sense of dread came over me. My stomach drew up in knots, and my chest felt like an elephant sat on it. And it was exactly the way I felt on this day ten years ago. Deja vu times a gazillion.

Maybe some of that grief on both levels isn't processed completely. But it seemed the more I tried to avoid it today, the more it was in my face. I just wanted to write, and not think about it for the most part. Yeah, write. Stay at home, listen to music, and work on my book. That's all I wanted to do.

So I got my email notification that the #storycraft chat on Twitter was about to begin. Yay! I thought. I can talk about writing, and not think about 9/11 today. Right?

Wrong! Guess what the topic was? How we use deeply emotional experiences for our writing endeavors. Well, that kicked my little avoidance scheme right in the ass.

It was a good chat. And it was exactly what I needed. It made me look at how I use my emotions and my experiences in crafting my novels, short stories and poems. I've used them as fodder for most of my writing for almost all of my life. Especially grief. That's probably because I was a melancholic person for a long time, battling major depressive disorder. I'm not an angry type of person, so I haven't really used anger much, but I have some stories in the works that will.

So the chat's going along fine, and I'm holding up pretty well, until the chat moderator asked me a question that struck home. "What about happiness?" she asked. "Does happiness ever inspire you?" That stopped me cold and I had to really think hard about that before I could reply. I don't really use happiness as an inspiration except for my endings. Most of my stories and novels have a "life isn't going to kick my ass" kind of ending. It's really not the usual "and they lived happily ever after" kind of ending, but they do end kind of on an upbeat. Most of them do, anyway. I've mainly remembered the sad parts of my life, and not the happy parts. Maybe because there's a lot of sadness when you lose three husbands in a nine year period. Yes, three in nine. It's a miracle I'm still alive and have my senses about me. It really is.

Anyway, the reason I've avoided most of the social networks today is because of remembering. Yes, we are remembering the fallen heroes of 9/11 today. But for the most part, the majority of the remembering I've seen has been focused on the tragedy itself. People are remembering the grief, the shock, and then the anger that followed. I didn't want to focus on that. It reminded me way too much of the grief, the shock, and the anger that I felt toward my husband the month before he died.

A lot of people don't know this, but I've got secrets from 9/11. But today, on this day, 9/11/11, I'm going to be completely honest. Because if I'm completely honest, I can move on. Just like this country needs to recover from the grief, the shock, and the anger of 9/11/01, and move on. I've kept this secret for a long, long time. But it needs to come out, just like America's secrets need to come out so that we as a country can deal with it and move on.

Plus, I've got that blog award thingy, so I have to. Not really, but, yeah. I owe my readers that. And the people I know in real life. I like getting the truth, and so do you. So, here it is.

If I told you my husband died from cancer, I lied to you. And I'm sorry. I just didn't want to be judged, or talked about behind my back, or made to feel ashamed, made to feel like I was dirty, made to feel like I was trash, or ridiculed. No one wants that, right? Nope, they don't. I don't either.

My husband died of complications from being HIV positive. He never told me he was positive. I found out when the HIV clinic called to confirm the appointment his nephrologist had made for him. He lived less than four weeks after I got that phone call. We were married less than 7 months when he died.

Four years later, I'm still HIV negative. Thank You God. I got my first negative test result on my 42nd birthday. It was the best birthday present I've ever received. Ever. They don't know why I never contracted HIV. Something to do with your immune system, they said. I laugh when I think of this now, as it is a totally ludicrous explanation since I have Celiac disease and rheumatoid arthritis, both immune system disorders. I know God when I see Him, and I give Him credit where credit is due.

But I want to focus this post not on trauma, grief or tragedy, but on recovery and rebuilding, both in my own life, and in the life of my country. But in the meantime I still have questions. What lessons did 9/11 teach us?

Are we more tolerant of people that are different than us? Or do we make fun of them? Do we persecute and judge them because they don't believe the same things we believe, or because they have contracted a social disease, or because they have a different sexual orientation? The war on terror is a war against an idea, a concept, and can a war like that ever be won? Will it ever end? And will it be the happy-ever-after yes-they're-finally-home kind of ending we want? Or will it drag on and on as long as there remain countries we haven't conquered and oil fields we haven't obtained control over? And for God's sake, why didn't my husband tell me he was HIV positive before he told me he loved me and laid down with me and tried to kill me?

I've learned a lot of lessons from 2001, and 2007. Just because someone is different from me doesn't make me better than that person. Everyone has their own struggles and difficulties, their own private demons they have to deal with. Everyone has psychological, emotional, and physical pain, no matter where they come from. It's part of being human. And even though today writing helps me deal with pain on all levels, that wasn't always the case. I always wanted to run from pain. But I found the more I ran, the more pain I experienced. It was a vicious cycle.

When the towers started falling, people started running. But where have we, as a country, run to since 2001? We've lost a lot of our freedoms in the effort to protect ourselves, and we've run from one war to another. And I ran from one thing to another, from man to man, from drug to drug, trying desperately to stop the pain. America needs to stop running. Only when I stopped running and looked at my pain, and what caused it, and the pain I caused others, did I start to recover. I stopped self-medicating and started practicing a celibate lifestyle. I went to therapy. My therapist was a writer. If it weren't for him, I know you would not be reading these words right now, because I had decided to never write again. I thank God for Giles every day. I'll never forget him.

And I've started to rebuild. I've decided to concentrate on my fiction and not do any freelance writing for now. I've decided to self-publish my novels and short stories instead of doing the traditional publishing dance. I'm just too much of a control freak, I guess. And I don't want my success as a writer in the hands of some people I don't even know in some New York publishing house that doesn't give a shit about me and is only looking at the bottom line. For so many years I thought my destiny was in the hands of fate. It took a lot of years and a lot of pain for me to realize that to a great extent I hold my destiny in my own two hands.

I made a mistake. I put myself in a position that I shouldn't have. I trusted someone when I had no reason to, and they betrayed my trust. And I'll never put myself in that position again. I'm not saying I'll never fall in love again. I'm saying that a test is in order before trust is given. And I want to be there when the test is taken, and when the results are given. It's one lesson I have finally learned. I have to love me more than anyone else loves me, or else I do myself a disservice.

The United States made the same mistake. The countries she laid down with ended up turning on her. And in doing so, she did herself and her citizens a disservice. And it's cost and is still costing us so many lives, both civilian and military, for far too long. The United States of America has to learn to love its own more than it loves money, oil, the bottom line, world domination, and being the policeman of the planet. The bottom line is in the red more than the revisions for my first novel. This country is terminally ill with greed and corruption just like my first draft is sick with adverbs and passive voice. Money and oil don't make up this country. The people do.

America's destiny is also in her own hands, the hands of the people. The two hands of every citizen of this country make up the hands of the United States of America. And it's up to us where she goes and how she gets there.

We don't have to run anymore. We don't have to have secrets anymore. Transparency is a good thing. It is the thing that helps us separate the truth from the lies.

Don't think that I don't appreciate or don't have any gratitude for our military. I appreciate and am very grateful for our military. I just hope their sacrifices for our freedom haven't been in vain. That is my prayer for today, and every day. 

We will never be in that pie-in-the-sky mindset of September 10th ever again. But we can be like we were on September 12th. We can stand, and look at ourselves, and we can make changes and make this country as great as it was once not so long ago. We can be a country where stranger helps stranger, neighbor helps neighbor, and we don't turn our head to look the other way. A country where we aren't afraid of being attacked all the time. A country that will lend a helping hand where it is really needed. Right here at home.

I post this video in honor of my country, and in honor of the citizens of the Unites States of America. I hope she as a nation, and we as a people, can recover, heal, rebuild, and move on.