9-11

As long as I can remember I have had weird déjà vu type dreams. Nothing incredibly significant. It's just usually enough to stop me and ask myself "have I been here before?" And then I recall the dream. It would be great if it were say...for lottery winning numbers but no it's usually the way the light will hit a mustard bottle in a cafe I have only been in that once. Something ridiculous. However there was one time in which I knew quite clearly something terrible was going to happen. The only problem was I could not remember the dream foretelling of the threat. It was 9-11.

On the morning of September 11th, I woke up in a complete panic. I didn't oversleep. Nothing was out of the norm. However, nothing could shake the impending doom. Something very bad was going to happen. I could not stop thinking about this feeling I had. I couldn't shake it while getting ready for work and then on the commute. I decided to call my mom hoping she could "talk me down". 

I explained to her that something catastrophic was going to happen that day. I was positive it wasn't personally going to happen to a member of my family but I specifically told her "it will be like the day JFK was shot." I knew there would be people sobbing in the streets and huddled around televisions and radios. The eerie quiet would come. She did her best to calm me down and as I explained to her the dread I thought I had to find out where the president was that day. If it was like when JFK was shot maybe someone was going to try to kill President Bush?

I flipped through the radio stations in my car until I heard that Bush was reading to children at an elementary school in Florida. I nearly fainted. What if someone was going to make an attempt on his life at an ELEMENTRY SCHOOL?! The thought made me sick. As I pulled in to the parking garage of work my mother and I said our good byes and I told her to call me if she heard any news.

One I was in park I noticed I was really early for work. I decided to stay in my car listening to the radio for more information. Nothing was mentioned. It was relatively calm. Right before I got out of my car there was a brief report of a twin engine plane hitting a building in New York. I thought surely that can't be it? I shrugged it off but the anxiety was still there. I hoped that's all it was. I tried to convince myself perhaps it was just that as I walked through the parking lot and boarded the elevator to the top floor of the high rise I worked in downtown St. Louis.

When the bell rang and the elevator doors opened, the first thing I noticed was how quiet it was in the office. At the time I worked for TD Waterhouse in Mortgages. There were about 100 loan processors who typically were chatting away on their headsets. It was set up like a call center. There was always a buzz of voices but not that day. I looked around and no one was at their desks. I thought I had overlooked a team meeting and I was going to be in trouble. After the anxiety I felt since waking up that's the LAST thing I needed. As I rounded the corner I saw instead, all my coworkers gatherered around the televisions mounted around the office. Some were crying, others had their hands over their mouths in shock. From a distance I only saw smoke rising from a building on the screen.

The news program said a commercial plane...not a twin engine plane had hit the World Trade Center. Moments later I saw yet another hit. That eerie silence came. Nothing could be heard expect the reporters and sobbing. The major life changing catastrophe played out right in front of me. 

We all know the rest. I was so confused. Why have the ability to anticipate a terrorist attack but not know enough to do something about it before hand? It felt like such a waste. I will never understand.

It's been 14 years and I still can't get over the feeling I had that morning. Had I not called my mother before hand, I bet people would say I was full of shit. I would think so if someone told me the story. 

It pisses me off that I have a useless gift. I didn't get a warning before Mike took his life. That would have been helpful. I never get premonitions about situations I can help with. 

The events of that morning did teach me to listen to my dreams. To pay close attention to what my body and my conscious is trying to tell me. 

As crazy as that sounds it's all true.