I had (have) ambitions to finish my revisions today. This morning, it became even more important to me to do so when the symbolism of finishing today hit me (more on that in a moment). I am not getting very far in achieving this goal, however, since I have frittered most of the day away in reading 9/11 rememberances online and getting used to the Office 2003 that was thrust upon my computer. (Thank god my real work is now Windows-free. I would really go crazy otherwise.)
So in the hopes of getting something out of my system so that I might get closer to my goal, I thought I'd blog a little of the things I have been thinking about today.
September 11, 2001, totally changed the direction of my life. And now that I have gotten used to those changes, and they fit me so well, it is good to look back and remind myself that the me that is me is not inevitable, but chosen, and something I want to continue to work at. Also, I feel an enormous debt of gratitude and guilt to the tragedy of so many that has indirectly given me so much hope. I want always to acknowledge that debt.
Five years ago, I was a struggling opera singer in NYC and so miserable I didn't even know how miserable I was. The only bright spot in my daily life was my day job (well, evening job) of teaching GMAT review courses, mostly downtown. When the towers fell, the most devestating personal realization I had was that I did not know if the people who mattered the most to me, who made my days bearable--my students--were alive. Not only that, but that I was such a small part of
their lives that no one would know to tell me that they were dead. The utter barrenness of this was shattering.
Fortunately, every single student I ever had survived that day. I closely scanned the lists of the dead as they were compiled and never found a name I recognized. I had students who escaped the towers, one was a Morgan Stanley employee who made it down from around the 85th floor as part of that company's miracle due all to John O'Neill, their security advisor who started evacuations before the second plane hit, saving thousands. A couple were bruised and cut by debris, but all lived.
In all of this, I also realized that my music, which had been an all-consuming antidote to loneliness and shyness since I was about 5, was not a source of comfort or inspiration. Instead, I was mad at myself. I had so many idle interests in politics, foreign affairs, emergency medicine, all of which seemed
useful in those days. But I never had the confidence or courage to
do anything about my interests or abilities, and until the fall of 2001, I thought it didn't matter. I thought if I wasted my life in the utterly selfish pursuit of my singing dreams, it wouldn't matter. No one would care. And if I clung to music, no matter how unfulfilling and boring it was in the day-to-day grind, I wouldn't have to face challenges, disappointment, failure, and all the things that I thought came with actually
living.But the gift September 11 gave me (and I am very aware of how ghoulish and selfish that sounds) was a sense of urgency. Both from the knowledge that we as a civilization still have fights to fight, and smart, honorable people are not a commodity we can afford to waste and from the knowledge that my life was precious, fragile, and, at the time, wasting away.
I think I would have stopped singing eventually, but probably not for another few years. I don't know whether I would have chosen policy afterwards or not. But that day made the decisions easy and quick. I stopped pursuing singing in October or November and was writing applications to graduate schools full time starting around Thanksgiving.
I started talking to my students outside of class, getting to know them and in small ways and large, befriending them, rather than caring for them from a distance. I stopped waiting to be noticed by others and started reaching out, taking the first step.
Once I got to grad school the changes started positive feed-back loops to the point where I am barely recognizable to myself, when I stop to think about it. And all of the glorious things that I know about, too: economics, statistics, minutae of al Qaeda, education policy, accounting, markov chains, linear programming, SAS, STATA, LaTeX, Mathematica, risk analysis, rowing, California, trans-continental plane routes, Argentina, burping babies, full moon hikes, pregnancy tests, red meat, sex on the beach, martinis....
I might be done with my PhD in a matter of days, and I might be done with this phase of my life in a matter of weeks. My goal for the next step is to first continue what I have learned here: that life matters, that my time is precious, that I have a lot to share. Second, I want to find ways to reconcile my past with my present. I want to find ways to sing again. Not in the cut-throat world of profesisonal opera, but somehow. Join a bluegrass band or sing the blues.
Okay. Onwards.
