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It's Fleet Week.
May. 27th, 2017 01:23 amI absolutely hate Fleet Week, and I'll tell you why.
Fleet Week involves air shows. Air shows sometimes end up sending fighter planes over my house. Fighter planes over my house panic me and bring me back to my third period class on 9/11, when they were right over my school. This is not good.
And I feel so stupid about it. Nobody I knew got hurt. Nobody I knew* was even there - the closest was Jenn, on the boat. She just walked off back into the terminal and went home. Likewise, my mother and I were both on Staten Island. (And trapped here for a week!) It's not like I had to flee Lower Manhattan with body parts raining down on me.
So even though "a lingering dislike of low-flying planes, especially fighter planes" is a very, very minor side effect of 9/11, I don't like having any at all, like it's somehow disrespectful to people who actually suffered and actually have PTSD. (And you don't need to tell me that this is a ridiculous position. Knowing that doesn't make it better, and I feel like the vicious cycle this can lead to is a bit self-evident.)
On the plus side, and there is a plus side, at least I'm aware it's Fleet Week. It's only really bad when I don't pay attention to the calendar and am completely taken by surprise. One year the airshow was a week late or something, and I ended up in the basement with the girls. They thought I was completely overreacting. And I was, but if I hadn't been, I might've just saved their lives, so whatever.
Edit: Actually, I had the bright idea after typing all this up to look at the schedule. Looks like all airshows have already happened. Boy, is that a relief. Worked myself up over nothing!
(Still don't like Fleet Week.)
* This is not strictly true. My mother's coworkers were all there, and I knew many of them. But you know what I mean, I hope. Anyway, they all survived with no physical injuries.
Fleet Week involves air shows. Air shows sometimes end up sending fighter planes over my house. Fighter planes over my house panic me and bring me back to my third period class on 9/11, when they were right over my school. This is not good.
And I feel so stupid about it. Nobody I knew got hurt. Nobody I knew* was even there - the closest was Jenn, on the boat. She just walked off back into the terminal and went home. Likewise, my mother and I were both on Staten Island. (And trapped here for a week!) It's not like I had to flee Lower Manhattan with body parts raining down on me.
So even though "a lingering dislike of low-flying planes, especially fighter planes" is a very, very minor side effect of 9/11, I don't like having any at all, like it's somehow disrespectful to people who actually suffered and actually have PTSD. (And you don't need to tell me that this is a ridiculous position. Knowing that doesn't make it better, and I feel like the vicious cycle this can lead to is a bit self-evident.)
On the plus side, and there is a plus side, at least I'm aware it's Fleet Week. It's only really bad when I don't pay attention to the calendar and am completely taken by surprise. One year the airshow was a week late or something, and I ended up in the basement with the girls. They thought I was completely overreacting. And I was, but if I hadn't been, I might've just saved their lives, so whatever.
Edit: Actually, I had the bright idea after typing all this up to look at the schedule. Looks like all airshows have already happened. Boy, is that a relief. Worked myself up over nothing!
(Still don't like Fleet Week.)
* This is not strictly true. My mother's coworkers were all there, and I knew many of them. But you know what I mean, I hope. Anyway, they all survived with no physical injuries.
