A day to remember, an experience to forget

Like most people, I can tell you exactly what I was doing on the morning of 9/11/2001. You never forget things like that. Traumatic things. Things that are so far from the status quo that your brain decides to permanently etch the most miniscule things, that on any normal day, you'd easily forget.

For example, I can tell you that I had two different colored socks on that day - by accident of course. I can tell you what 5 of my coworkers were dressed in because I can see them reacting to the news in unison. The look of disbelief and horror on their faces is stained in to my brain like a monitor that was left on too long that developed a burnt image.

It's things like this that I don't know why I remember. I just do. It's often human nature to block traumatic events in our minds. Our brain knows that we don't ever want to experience them again but yet it records each and every moment like a security camera.

It was on this day, five years ago, that my brain chose to forget about everything else that I thought was important in my life and remind me of the things that truly are.

And I called home.