First: I'm sorry.

I didn't want to write about this, to have this be the first real thing I wrote in almost a month (well, wrote and posted that is; I do a lot of half-written forgotten writing that, for some reason, I don't really want to finish or share). Because it's all very cliched and I really, really don't want to be a contributor to that.

But then, you know, I also feel like at some point, I really should say something about something, and why not now?

So anyway.

It's been a year and I think I've finally caught my breath from everything. Mostly, anyway.

It's not that that day affected me so personally—I'm not a New Yorker, I didn't lose anybody, and I knew that being on the 18th floor of a high rise dorm in West Philly doesn't really make you a target to anybody except those who react violently towards bad architecture. But the time from early July through the fall was dotted with a difficult string of events: my father had his affair, Jon died, the cat was hit by a car, my dad announced he was moving out, September 11th.

It wasn't happening to me mostly; the people around me were more directly hit and I was left to just watch them wading through it. The fall was sort of a blur. I got lost somewhere in the endless cycle of classes, reporting and too-short weekends, and by the time Christmas had finally finished and New Year's rolled around, I wanted to wash away the entire year.

(I'm sure I wasn't alone on that.)

But now, it's been a while, and things feel better. Mostly, anyway. Nothing has changed really, nothing ever un-happens, which is still what I wish could happen.

But I'm the type who's willing to (idiocially, perhaps) believe that things actually are getting better and will somehow be for the best in the end. Anyway, I feel more whole now than I did a year ago. I don't know what's going to come in the next year, so I won't be stupid and predict I will feel even better a year from now, but it's what I hope will happen.

Anyway, I don't know. But now that I've said something, maybe I can change subjects now and write something I actually feel like talking about.

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