How has your life changed since 9-11?

My gov., (U.S) has become extremely overbearing.

Hmm… let’s see….

On 9/11 I went into work and saw some horriffic news come across my news ticker while attempting to provide support for a customer in the absence of the necessary tools and information while my boss occupied himself talking with his boss and his boss’ boss to review plans to outsource my job to India.

Today I came into work and saw some horriffic news come across my news ticker while attempting to provide support for a customer in the absence of the necessary tools and information while my boss occupies himself talking with his boss and his boss’ boss to review plans to outsource my job to India.

Nope, not much of a change other than I am now required to remove my shoes from my feet, toiletries and laptop from my bag, and walk past a menacing looking security guard wearing blue rubber gloves any time I travel by air.

My life has changed a lot in the last decade, but I do not attribute the changes to 9/11.

I hate to fly….HATE IT! Somehow being IN a plane and hearing the Captain tell you that “due to terrorist activities, we have been ordered to land at the nearest airport” kinda spoiled flying in a plane for me.

Flying is a challenge for me since 9/11.

911, for those of us with higher numbers on our life odometers, was like November 22, 1963. We all recall right where we were and what was going on on the day JFK was assassinated. 911 was like that. Perhaps in the 60’s we felt like WE were somehow no longer as innocent and as we have gone down the decades, September 2001 was for us boomers the recognition of a new level of evil had come home to us. Whatever theory we hold with respect to what REALLY each of these days was all about, we come away changed. I listen to talk shows where specific people groups – i.e. NY firefighters are interviewed and for them as for those families who lost people in the targeted US areas and for those families who have subsequently lost loved ones in Afghanistan and Iraq, there is an ongoingness. For once trauma and tragedy impact lives, they are changed forever. Some are changed in a tender way of now being able to see every moment as gift and a new level of compassion enters. For others cynicism roots even deeper than it was before the event. I have heard it said that for people everywhere we line up on two sides of the word YOU. We either have a basic view of life as THANK YOU. or F**K YOU. It is up to us to decide what the life companion to our YOU in attitude shall be. Day after day since 911 has rolled by and slipped into another year but could it be that something extra evil was unleashed that day on the world stage, and has mutated off into other atrocities which have unfolded progressively? Are we seeing new chapters of a central plot unfold before us?

I can’t go on base anymore. It was an open post before 911. There was mountain biking, shooting at the post target range, or taking my dogs walking. It sucks now.
On a more encompassing scale, I’m not impressed with the patriot act at all. But something like that was bound to happen to us some day regardless. That’s about it.