Ten days.  It's hard to believe that the big move is only ten days away.  I remember almost, what? 10, 11 months ago, sitting in my big office (with a window! And a door!) at a job that was sucking me dry, deciding once and for all, whether I wanted to make this move.  I decided then that I would just do the darn application and see where the pieces fell.  If I didn't at least try for it, then I'd always wonder about it.  

It's amazing how things can change so quickly.  I was laid-off shortly thereafter and, along with other drastic changes in my life - all of which came in rapid-fire succession - I found myself in a very dark, bewildering place.   My mom likes to say that life rewards action, which I'm pretty sure she got from Dr. Phil.  But it's true, and even though I was in a dark place, I knew that I had to continue on and figure it out.  Stopping isn't an option in life.  So I kept on going.  I took a Spanish class.  I started writing a blog (right here!).  I expanded my circle of friends.  And, at some point, that very long, extended winter we had ended and I find myself on the other end of it all, experiencing a very different life than 11 months ago. 

Would I change anything from the last 11 months?  Oh, maybe a couple things I wouldn't have given up on so easily.  But that's life for you:  you grow and grow and grow.  You never stop.  Or at least you shouldn't. 

I've been asked over and over again if I'm excited or nervous about this move to France.  And the answer is yes.  I'm both of those things at different times.  The moments of excitement hit me at the most unlikely moments, right out of the blue:  as I'm getting into my car or when I'm sitting at my desk.  And in those moments, I know I'm doing something really great for myself. 

The nerves, however, are more ubiquitous and all the anxiety associated with moving to a new, unknown reality, linger around me most of the time now.  But that's not a bad thing.  Fear isn't always a terrible feeling.  It's tells us we're alive.  It tells us that we're taking risks in our life.  The bad kind of fear comes from the fear of doing anything at all.  Of being so afraid to change anything about your life, that you become stuck in the same place, immovable where you are.  I've felt that fear, too, and prefer where I am now. 

Eleven months ago I took a leap and, in ten days, I will start a brand new adventure for myself.  Same journey, new chapter.  I'm feeling pretty lucky, actually.  Tonight I'll go out with a group of friends to celebrate.  When I arrive in Paris (almost to my destination), I'll be greeted by a long time friend and together, we'll celebrate a new beginning.  I'm very lucky, indeed to have friendships that traverse continents.  Lucky, indeed.

In the midst of running around trying to get all my things together, there have been a few changes around here.  Our kitchen is completely torn apart and renovation is officially begun!  Finally!  Expcet now we have no oven, which means no baking. :( Also (and much more self-involved) I changed the color of my hair.  I am now very very brunette.  Not just a little like I used to be. ;)

Dip 'N Dots.

That's what I really think about, if you want to know.

It's funny how memory obscures the past.  How some things fade away like shadows into time and others brighten and pop for no apparent reason at all, wedging themselves solidly in your mind.

But, as I search the recesses of my mind, a few things begin to dust themselves off and I can remember details.  The kind of details that seem strangely unimportant now.  The poster for The Scarlet Pimpernel on the side of a wall.  The TKTS booth on the lower floors.  The numbers on the elevator reaching up up up.  The Windows on the World restaurant (what a thrilling concept for a 12 year old). 

Creeping to the edges of the windows to look out so high up - what did I see?  But the memory is gone now, nothing there at all.  And finally, taking to the very top, standing on the World Trade Center Tower with my family, looking out to see the rest of New York City.  I remember thinking how wide open the top was and how inaccessible the edges were.  It was safe up there. 

If I had known it would be my first and last time on the World Trade Center, maybe I would have held in my mind's eye what it felt like to be up there a little better, or gone to the edge and looked down.  Maybe I would have stood outside and looked straight up to see just how big they really were.  Maybe I wouldn't have cared quite so much about the first Dip N' Dots of my life and more on the finite nature of the moment.  But I was 12 and I didn't know and couldn't have known.  They say hindsight is 20/20 and, I suppose, it's true.  

What I find is that the bigger lessons of having visited the World Trade Center Towers didn't come that day.  No, the lesson that sticks with me, that permeates my every thought about this tragic, terrible day came later and it is this: it could have been me.  It could have been you.  It could have been any one of us. 

There are so many tragic things to come from the terrorist attacks on 9/11.  Such a crazy, insane 10 years ensued, that it is hard to pinpoint exactly where even to begin.  Without a doubt, it is the most defining moment of our time.  What the idyllic, idealism of 90s brought, 9/11 and the ensuing decade ended.  The wars, the extremity of our politics, the religious extremism at home and abroad, the mounting debt, the Great Recession - it would all be easy to focus on.  But for me, what I want to focus on is the people.  That's all it's about anyway, isn't it?

In protest to terrorism, to the extreme anti-woman sentiments of Al Qaeda, and in honor of my love and our support of the city, my mom and I went to New York in the spring of 2002 to celebrate my 16th birthday.  What we saw then was a city in mourning.  Ground Zero was a gaping hole where the towers once stood.  The blocks surrounding it were plastered with flyers with faces of the missing; the ones who would never come home.  Until that moment, it was hard to grasp the loss, hard to grasp the depth of the wound suffered.  So many of us sat and watched from thousands of miles away in horror as the towers fell and the death toll came in.  But here in front of my eyes, were the people that counted the toll.  Everyday people going to work.  Firefighters trying to save.  Mothers, fathers, daughters, sons.  All lost for no reason but the instill fear. 

But like any strong lady, New York and her residents soldiered on.  Today, the city thrives, the people have endured and New York continues to be one of the greatest cities on earth.  I don't think New Yorkers, frankly, would have it any other way.

History is our greatest teacher.  How do we learn from tragedy?  How do we grow?  I offer to you, in opposition to extremism everywhere and in honor of those killed on this day, ten years ago, a message of love.  Because, in my view of things, it is the opposite of terrorism.  Through the eyes of love, we stand for ourselves and we stand for others.  We move to the middle.  We listen better.  We compromise.  We image the world a better place.  And what we imagine, we can then believe and what we believe, we can then accomplish.  So today, I chose to focus on love, in its greatest, most encompassing sense.  Doubtless, we will mourn.  And so we should.  Because it could have been me and it could have been you, too.  And if today were the anniversary of my final day, I would want my legacy to be one of the enduring power of love. 

Apparently Nike has just announced that they will be auctioning off shoes reminiscent of those seen in "Back to the Future" for Michael J. Fox's foundation.  Basically one of the greatest trilogies of all time, I would love to see these in person.  Though I have to say,  I really liked the talking, self-drying jacket slightly more.