Current location:	The safety of my own home
Current mood:	melancholy
Current music:	Elton John-The Last Song

Five years can seem like a lifetime...or just yesterday.
Wow.

September 11, 2006.

I can't believe it has been five years since the day that changed everything. It's hard not to think about where you were...how you discovered what happened in New York City and Washington D.C. and Shanksville, Pennsylvania and the realization that many of your neighbors (or even worse, you or someone you know) would never again see the people that they loved most.

I can still see Kevin coming into our bedroom as he was getting ready for work (I was between careers at the time) and telling me that something catastrophic had taken place at the World Trade Center. It had been almost two years since my last trip to NYC, but as I watched the devastation unfold on television it felt like it was just yesterday. And I couldn't even comprehend what the people who were actually LIVING it were feeling...which I'm sure was a sentiment shared by countless people across the country and beyond America's borders.

But even with a hole in my heart (however insignificant it was in the grand scheme of things), I knew one thing for certain. New York was STILL one of the most amazing places I'd ever seen and NOTHING would stop me from coming back. And I did...with friends that following spring...with Kevin in the fall of 2002 (it's hard to even describe the Ground Zero of that time in words and I won't try)...and several times since. I'm proud to be part of the same country as the residents of New York (and the people of the greater DC area and the families and friends of the valiant men and women of Flight 93)!

So tonight I'm going to cling to my loved ones just a little tighter, like I did in the darkness of September 11, 2001, and remember.

WE WILL NEVER FORGET.