get the lead out - part II

I remember the morning of 9-11, as I’m sure most do. Because I worked on an airline contract but not for the airline itself, there was an odd combination of involvement and detachment. The man from the airline who managed our contract sat in the office next to mine. When he came to my door (yes, I used to have an office with a door), I couldn’t process what he was saying. He was the first one to tell me that a plane had hit the World Trade Center, and just in case I was worried, it wasn’t our airline. That was in the first few minutes, when we thought 9-11 was just a horrible accident.

When the second plane hit, we knew different. Then everyone was clamoring for information, until it shut down the internet. We gathered in my office and stood around a little red radio, listening. When the report came that the towers had fallen, my account manager didn’t believe me. It wasn’t absorbable without visual verification.

All non-essentials, us included, went home immediately, because no one knew at the time what the terrorist targets were. Looking back, it seems silly that we worried about being targets. But on September 11th, we all still found it illogical for planes to take down skyscrapers, and yet they had.

The TSA brought all planes down as quickly as possible. You didn’t land at your final destination. You landed where there was room to land. Until people were cleared to fly again, that’s where you stayed. When I drove in the following morning, the airport was a parking lot. And until that I day, I had never realized how loud the airport was. Because by contrast, it was utterly still. At lunch at a local restaurant that afternoon, people who were stranded confronted us because our contractor badges affiliated us with the airline. They were inconvenienced; they were away from home and relatives were frightened. Not to toot my own horn, but despite not being an airline representative, I think I calmed them down. When I told the man that the airline’s first priority was to get Americans on foreign soil back to their country, he realized that waiting his turn had a purpose.

The environment after 9-11 was about hunkering down and making do with what you had, especially at an airline. People wanted cost savings. My personal development was no longer part of the deal. Looking back, I think I convinced myself that my dreams were impractical and unimportant because that acceptance almost seemed patriotic. Besides, I was in a new city, and I with overtime gone, I needed to be practical to pay the house note on time, to maintain a house, to stay employed. I can look back at the situation now and see exactly what I did. I created a little cave for myself. Then I dove inside and prayed it would be safe enough. I spent all my energy avoiding failure.

The “Avoid Everything” strategy worked better than I imagined. I avoided both failure and success. I avoided bankruptcy and fortune. I avoided the worst and the best. I could go on, but I think you see the point. I got stuck. I don’t know if this led to the health problems I had for a while, or if the health problems I had just gave me an excuse for not trying. It hardly matters. I gained weight, I became anemic and lethargic. Not only was I physically tired, I was mentally tired as well.

More on this soon.

--Laura