Tuesday, September 2, 2014

The Beginning Of School

Aaaaa the sign of another session to be changing, the kids around here have gone back to school as of September 1st. It's also a reminder to me that I'm coming up shortly here on living in Belgium for *13yrs*! I was due to leave the good ol' US of A the day the 9/11 attack happened. I remember being at a shop buying some last minute goodies to take with me for my soon to become new family, checking out and having the lady at the register ask me after hearing that I was heading to Belgium if I had heard the news about the plane hi-jacking that had just happened. I thought she was just out to scare/worry me since I mentioned I never had flown yet either.

I got to my car, there was an eerie silence in the packing lot with exception of a bunch of cars that had their radios tuned into which ever radio station they were listening to... but none were playing music. They all had their 'live news' feeds going. I started up my car and sure enough my radio station had it too :( I remember hitting the pavement in the parking lot, bag still in hand now spilled on said pavement and I must have gone whiter then a freshly laundered sheet.

At that moment in time, it was still way before the towers had fallen, before people knew what kind of damage had been done or would have happen. For me it was a time of 'OMG I was just going to leave that afternoon to finally be with man of my dreams'. A sudden rush of 'oh shit, he has no idea where I am, what I'm doing, if I am on my flight or not and 100 other things dealing with him' and I rushed my way back home as fast as I could legally to call him.

Call me selfish, call me a bitch, call me what ever you want at this point but I was also only in my early 20's and finally having found a love I would soon be calling my own. One that has waited almost 3months for me to come to him after making the choice to leave my life in the states. All I cared about at the time was that I was no longer leaving the day of September 1st, 2001 and at that moment in time not sure when I would be either.

I left something like a week or so later. Spent 9hrs past the time that the new time had been marked as sitting and worrying in the airport lounge. Only thing really keeping me from losing it was the voice of my beloved every hr or so through phone cards and a public pay phone and the fact that within I hoped 24hrs I would be in his arms. I got on my plane needless to say despite every thing in my body telling me to no do it and landed safely first in Germany for a connection flight and then in Belgium where my beloved Camera Man was awaiting me with open arms and a sturdy force to collapse against after almost 30hrs of traveling in total. I trusted him with my life as he took me through this strange world I have never seen, never really heard of before meeting him and had all these strange words I have no idea what they meant. I drifted off a bit in the car ride back to the city he lived in and for the first night, we stayed at a hotel room before being forced to meet my soon to be mother-in-law.

I still to this day would not change a thing of what happened, because of it were not have happened, I would not be where I am in my life today. Things always happen for a reason and I believe there will always be a reason if we see it straight away or not. I am here, I am healthy, I am happy and I am enjoying life. I moved my parents here for their retirement and they too are enjoy their new life here. All is good, all is well, I have a roof over my head, I have a computer under my finger tips, I have food as much as I want on the table and a loving caring husband beside me through think, thin and all the good.

That is my 'how did I get here' story. Hope you got to know me a bit better and got to know also why I'm a bit harder core then most people in this world. I had to be, I had to survive and to do so I had to be quite cautious in my journey.

No comments:

Post a Comment