clutter

I don’t need to retell the story of where I was 11 years ago today, or what I was doing. I’ve told it a hundred times, I’ll probably tell it a hundred more, and right now, while my friends are mourning the loss of someone they loved very much, and who I am sorry I never got to know, I will tell you the two small memories that leap to mind. 

1. I remember logging into IRC and seeing all the friends who lived in my computer comforting each other, checking off who had been accounted for among those who lived in New York, DC, and Pittsburgh (I was the only one from Pittsburgh, and Somerset, PA is like an hour’s drive outside the city, even though it felt like our backyard that day). I remember that being the moment when I decided I would never feel weird about how many friends I made via the Internet. 

2. I remember sitting in my apartment, my very first apartment, that evening, IMing with my then-boyfriend as I kept vigil in IRC with my friends, listened to the radio, and waited for the President to speak. I remember telling him that I was tense and upset, and I remember him not understanding why, and telling me there was nothing I could do about it, so I shouldn’t bother feeling that way. I remember thinking that this was possibly the most useless thing he could have said. In hindsight, I can point to this as the moment I realized, on some level, that our relationship had run its course. I’m pretty happy with most of the choices I’ve made in my life and have few regrets, but one of them is that I wasn’t brave enough to face that realization head-on at the time. It took us four months to finally getting around to breaking up. But once we did, I got my head on straight and started living my life instead of letting it happen to me pretty quickly.