{7} The morning after

I slept through 9/11 because I was working second shift. When I woke up, it was to several cryptic messages from friends telling me to check the news. The towers had already fallen by then; the dust was settling over that apocalyptic dreamscape of tragedy. Needless to say, work was cancelled that day.

Likewise, I slept through the mass shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando on June 12th. I woke up to a chat message from my friend David asking, “Have your seen what happened in Orlando?” It was midmorning and by then, body bags were already being loaded.

Not having experienced those events in real time, but coming to them after the fact, made for a surreal experience of living in both the “then and now,” sitting at home, restless with horror and anguish, checking in with friends to make sure my own little bubble had not been directly affected. Orlando hits closer to home for me, literally, as it was my home for over two decades.

Those are eerie spans of time, when a world view is being collapsed under the weight of tragedy.

But I always find the day after to be worse.

Because the day after tragedy, life goes on. Even on 9/12, when Orlando (where I lived at the time) was essentially completely shut down, I still had to go to work. (I was a taxi dispatcher, and believe me, that was one service industry that was booming for 48 hours after the towers fell. It died off a few days later, but in the meantime, I had to coach drivers on the best routes to Atlanta, North Carolina, and yes, New York City.)

Over 100 people were shot yesterday, 50 of them dying on the floor of a nightclub in my hometown. Today, I am at work, typing this out on my computer. It’s a slow summer Monday on campus but nothing has been shut down, no classes cancelled. We’re all here, doing our jobs.

The adrenaline rush is over, the panic has faded, the shock worn down to a dull spark. These are the days of grief, the fugue state of life post-trauma when some lives go on, despite the fact that others do not. Outside it is warm and humid with a possible chance of rain.