Moving...arghhhh!!!

So I'm moving in 5 days...well less than 5. My life has been a blur for the past few weeks - looking at place after place (which in New York City is not uncommon), talking to agents pushing horribly depressing apartments using terms such as "great", "beautiful" & "bright" when what they should be saying is "depressing", "dark" & "dirty". So I finally found a place I like - a one-bedroom in Sunnyside, a block away from the subway, 20 minutes from work & close to shopping, amenities etc. etc. I worked with a great agent who helped me get approved very quickly and I signed the lease last Thursday.

After the lease it was time to pack. So three suitcases and three boxes later, my apartment is finally starting to look empty. Well a little...you never really know how much stuff you have until you have to put it all into enclosed compartments and move it! Of course the day I decide to go get boxes at Staples it is the begining of UN week, President Bush is in town AND there is a massive protest going on right outside Grand Central Station, where I get on the subway. My muscles are sore (I'm not sure why, until today I have been packing clothing) and I am exhausted, but the work is finally starting to get done. Then there are all the accounts to be cut off, all the addresses to be changed, mail forwarding and all that.

In a way the whole experience is therapeutic. It gives you a chance to clean up your life and your posessions - and keep yourself organized...which is not a bad thing. I am excited about the move, and the beginning of a new chapter of my life.

Remembering 9/11

Visiting the World Financial Center the other day, and staring into Ground Zero gave me the chills. I was living in Montreal at that time, quite well removed from any sort of threat or connection. It all seemed unreal; scary like the world was ending, on one hand, and too catastrophic to be true, on the other, - something out of War of The Worlds or Independence Day. Not something that was actually happening in New York City to real people with real families and lives. Now, being so close to it, it really started to hit home. I didn't lose anyone as a result of the attacks, Thank God, but as the 5 year anniversary neared, it was all the media seemed to be talking about. Getting the first respondents medical help, how the victim's families are now, the war on terror and much much more. While politics aren't quite my cup of tea, real stories and real human suffering are things that you don't have to have a lot of experience with to understand. I think about the people that woke up that morning, getting ready for work as usual like any other day, not knowing that it would be the last time they walked out the door, the last time they sat at their desk, the last time they saw their families. I think about the people aboard those planes, unsure of their destiny, the point at which they were fairly certain they were going to die. I think of their loved ones, waiting at home desperately not wanting it to be true. The fact of these emotions all felt within the span of one day, is almost too much to wrap one's head around. At the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, there was something that said that it was impossible for us to fathom the type of suffering that victims of tragedies like this have suffered. Our minds do not have the capacity to think that way. I think that's true, because I cannot even begin to comprehend how many families this shattered, and how many people were left heart-broken without the ones they loved. I hope that some good can come of all the suffering that took place 5 years ago, in one form or another.