Friday Night I had a breakthrough and I told my friends how great they are, and how much I appreciate them even though I may not say it.

I'm not a girlie girl. And I'm not a great personal communicator. I generally assume that my friends know I love them. And I don't say the word love. Ever, really.

But Friday night, maybe it was the Southern Comfort or the weariness or hormones, but I laid it out there.

I told A. that I admired her for what she's been through and what she's accomplished while preserving her wonderful sense of kindness and warmth to strangers. I told her that I am grateful to have her as a friend.

I told Gingi that sometime over the last year when I wasn't looking, she has grown into a new and even more beautiful person and that I am proud of her. Very, very proud of her.

I told my best friend A. that I love him but we will never be anything other than best friends and he shouldn't get used to me being around, because as he knows, I am cyclical.

Gingi and I spent some time comparing notes on the events of September and I belatedly thanked her for the help she lent us when searching for my friend's husband and other friends.

We discussed how our perspectives are so different on what happened. How she and Riot718 look at the events as a very "Attack on New York" way, which is based a lot on the fact that they are both much more New York-centric than I am. And, because they felt a strong allegiance or connection to those buildings as symbols of their New York.

I guess I don't think of myself as a New Yorker, even though I've lived here for 7 years.

For me, September 11th was an attack on America. It was an attack on innocent human life. It was an attack on peace, by targeting people who were not military, but living average existences like me, getting up and going to work to pay the rent and support a family. It was a senseless attack on people I knew, who probably never even met their murderers until the afterlife.

Many of the people who died weren't New Yorkers. They were Americans who came to New York. Or foreigners who came to America.

The way I look at it, it should hit home for everyone, because while it was them who perished, with just a turn of fate, it could have been any of you. Just 1 different event in the time before 9/11 and it could have been you, maybe vacationing here or transferred with a job.

It just happened to be them there that day. I guess that's why I like the idea of people being allowed to overlook that site that is a graveyard to so many. I want Americans to look down and understand the enormous area that burned down with so many people in it and I want people to understand, that it could have been them. Those people weren't targeted, they were just there that day for whatever reason.

It's a heady concept to realize that mortality can be defined by complete strangers with no compassion for the individual. No concept for humanitarianism. Just desire to make a point in the most blood-thirsty, criminal of ways.

The events of that day have changed me forever. I see it now. I feel stronger emotions. I have a different perspective on life and people. I'd like to think that I am a better person. It's funny, how tragedy can make you evolve, but I look at as a tribute to those who died and made this happen.

I hope to make them proud of the person I've become.

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