Never enough

      I hate the term "9/11". I've written those words before, yes, but tonight, surrounded by and contributing to the media frenzy marking tomorrow's fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on America, I feel them so much more.

      My memories of that day are still vivid. My fear and sorrow and simple the exhaustion that came when the day finally ended haven't become foggy with time. I can't forget the tears that were shed, or the exhilaration -- perhaps over-stimulation would be a better description -- that allowed us to work, without stopping to eat, into the night.

      I still feel a tightness in my chest when I recall the second one of our reporters, claiming to have found the only working payphone in Lower Manhattan, was cut off. Most will remember it as the moment the South Tower began to fall. In my mind, it's always been the time I thought Ana died.

      Just as clear, are the fifteen seconds that followed, me lamenting the fact that mine may have been the last voice she ever heard. And I remember immediately snapping out of it when an editor ordered me to "get back on the phone and find someone who's still alive. We can be sad later." She knew Ana had always been rude to me.

      I've often called the day a blur. I've claimed I worked on autopilot until they told me to go home, or better yet, to a bar. (I chose the latter.) The truth is, I remember the day with a screaming intensity I'd rather forget.

      Earlier in this post, I used the word exhilaration to describe the false energy we called upon that day. It's only partially off the mark. That day, letting people know seemed so important. Our jobs seemed to mean something that day. That day, I learned why I'd come back to journalism.

      Part of me is ashamed to admit it, but I felt more helpful that day, than in the ones that followed -- spending any moment not chained to my desk volunteering for the any of the charities or disaster relief orgs that where suddenly everywhere. Anything was better than sitting at home, waiting for calls we feared might never come.

      Eventually, all of my closer friends were accounted for. Ana, the reporter I'd always thought despised me, reassured me that she was fine. My colleagues at the paper became a family, of sorts, and I was overcome with wonder each time I recalled I'd only started my job there at the end of June.

      So, I hate the term "9/11". That shorthand, that nickname, suspiciously close to that of a convenience store, will never be full enough to express what that day did to and for me. What it did to and for this country.