It was a gorgeous Tuesday morning. I was riding the subway to work humming “Rock With You” after a fantastic Michael Jackson show at the Garden. When I got to my office I got a phone call. “Susan, there’s a hole in the World Trade Center. Turn on a TV.”

I was working as an event producer and we had a gig at Windows on the World the next morning.

“Listen, Dan. I don’t have time for this. I’ve got to make sure the linens are being delivered today.”

Two hours later I was standing in line at Mount Sinai with hundreds of other people until the hospital staff reverently announced that there weren’t enough survivors to give blood to. So we left.

My friends and I walked thirty blocks to an apartment where, with the rest of the world, we watched news coverage and cried until we couldn’t bear crying anymore. We went to a local bar – one of the few NY businesses that opened their doors that night – and we scoffed at the 20-somethings who were playing pool and acting as if our world hadn’t been shattered.

I’m not the same as I was eleven years and one day ago. And in many ways, that’s a very good thing.