September 11, 2026
I didn’t post yesterday.
I’ll probably post again later tonight, but right now it’s a little after 3 in the morning and, once again, I cannot fucking sleep.
I’m not even tired.
That’s the annoying part.
I went to therapy yesterday, came home, and did a ton of sorting for stuff I’m getting ready to put in the shop. I was productive. I kept myself occupied. I did all the things you’re supposed to do when you’re trying to tire your brain out.
And now I’m lying in bed wide awake.
My brain will not shut the fuck up.
Part of it is grief. That’s nothing new lately. Nighttime seems to be when my brain likes to pull open every drawer I’ve carefully shut during the day and dump the contents onto the floor.
But tonight there’s something else sitting heavily on my mind.
Today is the 25th anniversary of September 11th.
Twenty-five years.
How the hell has it been twenty-five years?
I was 18.
I had barely stepped into the real world as an adult when my friend called me that morning and told me to turn on the television.
So I did.
I turned it on just in time to watch the second plane hit the World Trade Center live.
That image has never left me.
I don’t think it ever will.
Like millions of other people, I just sat there staring at the television in complete shock as the day unfolded. The planes. The towers. The Pentagon. Pennsylvania. The people running. The smoke. The buildings collapsing.
Nearly 3,000 people were killed that day, and twenty-five years later families, survivors and first responders are still living with the consequences.
You don’t just “get over” something like that.
I’ve seen younger people say versions of that over the years, that it happened so long ago and people need to move on.
I understand that if you weren’t alive yet, or you were too young to remember it, September 11th is history to you.
For those of us who watched it happen, it isn’t just history.
We remember where we were.
We remember who called us.
We remember the television coverage.
We remember watching those buildings come down knowing there were people inside them.
That shit stays with you, man.
It stays with you.
Never forget.
There is one thing I remember about the aftermath that I hesitate to even call “good,” because nothing about the reason for it was good.
But I remember how united people felt.
For a brief period, it felt like so much of the bullshit that usually separates people got pushed aside.
Religion.
Sexuality.
Gender.
Race.
Politics.
People were just people.
People helping people.
People grieving with strangers.
People donating blood, showing up for each other and trying to figure out how the hell we were supposed to process what we had just witnessed.
I know it wasn’t perfect. There was ugliness after September 11th too, and innocent people were targeted because of prejudice and fear.
But I also remember a kind of togetherness that feels almost impossible to imagine now.
And I wish we could find some of that humanity again without needing a national tragedy to force us into it.
Then, twenty-five years later, we get this new story from Donald Trump about firefighters carrying him away because they thought a nearby building was going to collapse.
Yeah, he was apparently near Ground Zero in the days after the attacks. Fine. But this whole “firefighters carried me out because a building was going to collapse” story? I’m sorry, I call bullshit. There’s nothing backing it up, and somehow this incredibly dramatic story waited 25 years to make an appearance? Please.
I’ve made no secret of the fact that I think the man lies constantly, so nobody reading this should be shocked that I’m skeptical.
And yes, knowing the man we’re talking about, I personally find it very hard to believe that a story that dramatic wouldn’t have been told over and over and over again.
That’s my opinion.
Maybe I’m supposed to be nicer.
Be nice, Filly.
Fine.
I’m trying.
But sometimes a twat waffle is a twat waffle.
There. I said it.
What really bothers me is that September 11th doesn’t need anybody making themselves more important to the story.
It already has heroes.
Real ones.
There were firefighters who ran into those buildings while everyone else was running out.
There were police officers, paramedics, office workers and ordinary people helping complete strangers.
There were people who never made it home.
And the people who were actually there are still paying for it. Twenty-five years later, first responders and others who were exposed at Ground Zero are still getting sick and dying from what they breathed in that day. That alone should tell you how deep this tragedy still runs.
Those are the stories that deserve our attention.
Not somebody trying to make September 11th about themselves.
Maybe this anniversary is hitting me especially hard because grief is already sitting so close to the surface for me.
I’ve spent the last year learning exactly how strange time becomes after you lose someone.
Something can feel like yesterday and a lifetime ago at exactly the same time.
Twenty-five years ago, I was 18 years old sitting in front of a television trying to understand how something like this could possibly be happening.
Tonight I’m 43, lying in bed at three in the morning, still remembering exactly what it felt like.
Life moved.
The world changed.
I changed.
But that memory stayed exactly where it was.
My heart is with every family who lost someone that day, every survivor, every first responder and everyone who has spent the last twenty-five years carrying a piece of September 11th with them.
And always, always love you, New York.
Never forget.