Fifth anniversary of 9/11 has something to do with golf after all

Typically after a weekend of playing great golf courses I am left thinking about what might have been with my rounds. Careless decisions, poor putting, and my temper inevitably cause my scores to end up higher than I originally hoped.

But today is different. I got home from Hilton Head last night and immediately my thoughts shifted from my most recent blown opportunities on the course to blown opportunities in our national security in the years leading up to 2001; watching ABC’s Path to 9/11 left me speechless for almost three hours as it brought back horrible memories from my past. When I stopped to think about it, the majority of the horrific events that I have been old enough to remember, other than natural disasters, have been the work of Al Qaeda. While that was a numbing realization, I was struck even more by the documentary of the NYC firefighters that coincidentally was being filmed the morning of the attacks and unintentionally captured a glimpse of the horror from that day. The emotions I experienced last night were as powerful as those I experienced during the events themselves, and I felt as though I were reliving everything again.

During the actual attacks I was at the beginning of a three-month study abroad experience in London. As incomprehensible and confusing as the day would have been in America, I felt even more disoriented and disconnected being in Europe. I wasn’t sure exactly what was happening, I wasn’t sure if things were over, I wasn’t sure if anyone I knew had been killed, and I wasn’t sure what all of the people in the massive city around me were feeling about the attacks and about my presence. We were also staying in an area of London with a very high Muslim population, so my own ignorance of their culture certainly added to my discomfort.

Reliving these experiences last night was something I needed. It knocked me out of my closed-off and sheltered world that typically consists of worrying about golf and the minutia that goes into my job and brought me back into the reality that is our world today, a reality that is too easy to forget.

Hopefully I will be able to take something out of this fifth anniversary that has gotten here way too quickly and given us very few answers to the questions that plagued the final months of 2001. I just hope that I will be able to do a better job of reserving my stress, concern, fear, and compassion for events that actually matter rather than for those that really play no part in determining who I am as a person or who we are as a nation.

Ironically, something as insignificant as golf is where I really need to make a big change in my life. If I’m getting frustrated with my golf game and therefore not enjoying playing as much as I could, then I am certainly not taking advantage of everything for which our real heroes are fighting on a daily basis. It seems strange that to appreciate huge events, sacrifices, and issues a person must begin by taking advantage of the small blessings in his or her life, so that’s what I intend to try to do after being reminded of the events that took place on September 11, 2001.