This next story was hard to write and is rated more PG-13. I was inspired to re-visit this experience and write it out on September 11th, because it’s about what was happening in my life around September 11, 2001. But then I struggled with sharing it, for reasons you'll soon learn.
And how does this picture saying, "Jesus is coming, LOOK BUSY!" relate? I got this bumper sticker in the summer of 2001 at a truck stop somewhere between Steamboat Springs, Colorado and Park City, Utah, and it made me laugh during a time in my life that wasn't funny. It took a while for me to put it on a car I owned, because I just kept it with me for a while, inside my journal. But years later it made the window of my green Pathfinder I had for a long time...and finally I took a picture of the sticker before I sold the car years later, as a going away.
And it still makes me smile, which is appropriate for this difficult story.
I’ve written a version of this story before, but it had always been written in a superficial, nostalgic, and somewhat light-hearted way that more commemorated 9/11/01 than commented on what was REALLY happening in my own life, because I was ashamed. However, I’ve been doing my best to regard all my experiences in life as being constellations of continuous invitations to find joy, meaning, connection and purpose amidst my life’s journey…so in order to sync up that time in my life with the lens of my larger story, ALIGNED, I am ready to go deeper and examine and share what was really unfolding in my life before, during and after 9/11/2001.
Because it wasn't pretty, or all that inspiring.
When I previously shared a bit of this story, I always glazed over or danced around the events in my own life, because what went down on 9/11/01 was so horrifying. It was like my own life’s drama was so tiny in comparison, so I felt embarrassed to tell anyone about my own life’s trauma. Have a seat Harriet, September 11th just happened. The historic attack on the towers presented a tragedy so big that it felt like I could disappear and dissolve into the size of it. Meaning no one was looking at me or thought to take a look under the hood of my own life due to the overarching tragedy of 9/11. I felt invisible, but in a good way. No one had the attention span or interest to sense the internal and external chaos that was going on for me, making me make such huge, sudden and life changing decisions.
No one was paying attention to me because we were all so focused on 9/11. And rightfully and understandably so. Who did it? What happened? Who was lost? Why? Our collective hearts were breaking and it was such a global vulnerable feeling. So there I was in Steamboat Springs, having just been through a life changing event in my own life, but I couldn’t talk about it with hardly anyone, because I didn’t want to take away from the enormity of the events and aftermath of 9/11/01.
I shared already in the ALIGNED story, that the reason I left Steamboat Springs was because I’d been given a drug in my drink while out at a bar with some acquaintances, and I had been taken back to my cute little riverside home and assaulted by a faceless friend. And I also shared that what happened that night set in motion a fast domino effect of events in my life such as me leaving Colorado, me changing massage schools from Steamboat Springs to Salt Lake City and me suddenly packing up all that I owned into the back of my truck and taking it either to my parents house or putting it into storage. All in about a week’s time.
So what really happened? Ugh. It’s so hard and kind of icky to share publicly. But it also feels like a necessary piece of the puzzle to share, in order to unravel some of the shame I’ve had locked up inside me.
But first, let’s back up to where I was and what I was doing when I found out the news of September 11, 2001. And I bring that up because I think most of us who were teenagers or later remember the exact moment of hearing the news of the planes hitting the World Trade Center towers, and then the towers coming crashing to the ground.
For me, I was temporarily living out of the back of my black Toyota Tacoma truck that had an extended cab and a lockable cover over the back bed of the truck. I had finished taking most of my belongings to my parents house after they said I could move into their mother-in-law apartment, and what I couldn’t fit in the tiny apartment I put into their storage unit. I had my kayak and paddle strapped to the top of my truck and all my kayaking gear with me inside the back of the truck, and I had about a month before massage school started in Utah. I didn’t want to spend the time at my parents house, so instead I decided to return to Colorado and sleep in my truck and follow bands such as Widespread Panic, Leftover Salmon and Yonder Mountain String Band, and meet up with friends and paddle the rivers I could along the way. Where there was whitewater and music playing, I would be there. It was certainly a way of trying to navigate the simmering aftermath of feeling so violated in my own home. But also to explore what it felt like to be wildly reckless and free with my life, and operate as though life were short and I didn't care who disapproved of me. I’d been worried about that for a long time and this life detour felt like a permission slip to cut loose. I was following the rhythm of music and the flow of rivers…literally.
Yes, part of me felt so free during that small period of time where I was in between places and living day to day, but another part of me was still running away from and having a hard time accepting what had happened that night in Steamboat.
What I never mentioned before publically was that after that blurry night, I missed my period. And then my period just didn’t come. I had stopped my birth control because Buddha Tom and I had broken up and I was going to be doing some international travel over the summer, so birth control felt like a pain to keep up with, so I ditched it. But with the assault happening and me being off birth control, a new reality had set in. Was I pregnant? Wtf. No way. What were the odds of THAT happening? But my period continued to not arrive for a few weeks.
Holy shit. My life felt like it was both ending and blowing up before my very eyes, which activated in me a sense of recklessness and indifference about my life and body. So in part, that’s why I hit the road; I said it was in the name of chasing music and filling time, but in reality it was in the name of running from myself because if I stayed in one place I’d have to deal with what happened. But I didn’t really know any details of what happened other than I’d been violated. In a way, I was also afraid to remember who it was, because what then? Do I just make a phone call to him?
“Hi, it’s Harriet…can we talk about what you did to me? It was f&*#ked up…” That convo seemed highly unrealistic and impossibly awkward.
I had my history of working with the Rape Crisis Team to thank for being able to navigate that post assault situation so smoothly. I entered the clinic the next day and requested a rape kit exam as though I were checking in for a Pap smear. I displayed a sense of ease and knowing, because I already was familiar with the process from working with victims and I was also aware logically of what emotions to expect.
But it hit me quietly, and not in a way that displayed unwashed struggling in an outright way. I didn’t handle myself smoothly or logically, so it showed me that though I knew what emotions to expect, riding them out in my own life was still very challenging and confusing. I was in a post traumatic blur, and that made sleeping alone in the back of my truck seem fun, adventurous and kinda cool, not stupid and reckless. But I justified it because I had my dog and I always camped out in front of someone’s house I knew, in order to be able to take a shower, cell bars or have an emergency contact just in case.
And on the night of September 10th, 2001 I was parked in front of my friend John’s house in Steamboat (not his actual name btw). John and I had met while hiking with our dogs several months before and I loved his sweet Malamute and our dogs got along great. He also liked the same kind of music as I did, so we’d meet up at concerts and dance with our dogs alongside each other, but nothing ever unfolded romantically. He was just a nice guy with a safe house to park my truck in front of.
The plan was to stay in front of John’s house a few days while en route to meet up with another kayaking friend named “Festival Friend,” and I’d eventually end up at his house in Fort Collins. I’d planned to stay a few nights with Festival Friend and paddle around that area, and then fly to Washington, DC with other guy friends I’d recently met at another river festival, and go to “The Gauley Festival,” a huge whitewater event in Fayetteville, West Virginia, a few hours outside of D.C. My plane ticket was already booked, my camp site with the guys reserved, and I was flying out of Denver on September 25th, 2001. I chose Denver because one of the guys I was traveling with was from Denver, and I could leave my truck at his house, and he could help me with my equipment to/from the airport. Because traveling with a boat, paddle and whitewater gear was a lot to manage, even when there wasn’t an event like 9/11 shutting down airports and ramping up security.
Then the planes hit the towers and everything changed.
I woke up in my truck hearing screams coming from various houses around the neighborhood, and also from my friend’s house. He had 2 roommates who I knew of but hadn’t met before, and I hadn’t even gotten out of the bed of my truck yet, when one of them was outside my truck knocking on my window telling me to come inside and join them immediately.
When I opened the front door of their house there was a flat landing that had a stairway up on the left to the living room and kitchen and a stairway down on the right to some bedrooms. I could already see John and his roommates on the L shaped couch in the living room at the top of the stairs on the left, all focused on the TV, so I slowly proceeded up the short staircase, confused about what was happening. There was open space on the corner of the couch, so I joined them and sat down just as the second plane hit the second tower on the TV screen, and we all screamed. What the fuck was this? What was I seeing? Was this a dream? No, it was a nightmare unfolding right in front of me.
I began to cry…no, it was more like an uncontrollable sob, and I screamed a few more times and noticed a subtle shaking happening in my body, almost like a shake of disbelief, or perhaps my body was trying to shake off the horrible news I was taking in.
And then an eerie calm and quiet disbelief came over us all, and I was glued to the TV screen with John and his roommates, who an hour before were strangers to me. But at that moment we all felt so intimately connected due to witnessing the unbelievable tragedy in NYC. We didn’t leave the house all day, and we survived on coffee and ordering pizza twice, for lunch and dinner.
With the emotional toll of the day’s events, John invited me to stay the night with Sadie dog on his couch, and I fell asleep to the hum of the TV on with people moving around me. It felt nice to be among people during this time, and to be under the roof of a house, rather than my truck’s roof. It was almost like all of us in the house were holding space for each other and witnessing each other take all of this in, which was oddly comforting. But they still had no idea what other enormous experience I was struggling to process, no one did.
The next day I said goodbye to John and his roommates, and Sadie and I got in my truck and drove to meet Festival Friend and some of his friends about 30 minutes away at a river put-in of the Colorado river, along a stretch of rapids called “Shoshone.” There wasn’t much talking because they were already to go with gear on when I arrived, so I quickly prepared myself, hid my keys, rolled down my truck windows for Sadie and joined them on the river. The water was flowing high so the rapids were big, but I’d done this short stretch of river several times in the past, so I felt confident. The take-out spot was called “No Name,” and one of the guys shuttled me back up to get my truck, and when I returned to the take out the guys had packed up and were sitting around having a beer and finally talking about what had happened the previous few days.
Can you believe it?
Did you know anyone?
Are you okay?
We took the time to hear each other’s answers, took a collective deep breath and then got into our own cars and went our own ways. Except Festival Friend and I met up in Glenwood Springs to get food. We were close to his friends’ house, where I’d be staying for a night on the couch, and then we were making our way to my friend’s house in Fort Collins. The two of us stopped for food, and I couldn’t help but notice a women’s clinic nearby, and I memorized the name of it, and filed it away in my mind in case I needed it.
We had a nice night at the friend’ place, but there were a lot of people so I was looking forward to it being quiet at my Festival Friend’s house. And once there, he was a total gentleman. I’d met him a few months prior at a Leftover Salmon river festival between Vail and Steamboat, and we exchanged numbers. We’d met up for a Widespread Panic show outside of Denver and he’d invited me to come and paddle with his friends again when I passed by the Vail neighborhood, which was where I was now, so we’d scheduled another meet up.
When I settled into the guest room, we got some pizza and then the truth fell out of my mouth. I told him everything that was happening, I told him about Steamboat, the bar, the date rape drug, waking up knowing I’d been assaulted, about missing my period, me moving back to Utah because I was afraid to be in Colorado and how I was living out of my truck while waiting to fly to Washington for the river festival and then start massage school.
But the towers hit…so now what? Life felt different.
It was a lot for him to take in, and he was speechless.
He was a new friend, but he felt so safe to talk to. And we became oddly bonded by this news of my personal shit show of a life coupled alongside the events of 9/11. But finally I felt like I wasn’t taking anything away from 9/11 by sharing the unrelated events happening in my own life. Instead I felt relieved.
Festival Friend said he was proud of me, but also so sorry for what happened, and that helped me feel seen, heard and safe. Because I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong that night in Steamboat and that none of it was my fault. And that’s when I remembered the clinic we’d seen when we were leaving the river, and I asked Festival Friend if I could use his desktop computer to look it up online. My Festival Friend understood what I was doing and also followed my thought process…
“I’ll take you if you need help,” he said, without needing me to explain anything.
And that was that. We got into the car the next day and headed for the clinic to explore my options. I was equal parts terrified and excited. This all felt so easy, finally.
When we arrived at the clinic I walked to the counter and saw that it shared space with an office for cosmetic surgery, which was odd, but also explained the pictures of the smooth skinned flawless women on the walls. My eyes were swollen and red when I looked at the woman at the front desk, and I picked up a brochure for abortion. She nodded, and said I needed to take a pregnancy test, and then we could proceed. So I took the stick into the bathroom and peed on it.
There it was.
Confirmation of what has happened that night.
What now?
I came out of the bathroom looking like I’d seen a ghost, and I handed the stick to the woman, and it was like she read my mind because of the confused look on my face.
“Don’t be scared,” she said. Because obviously every woman coming out of that bathroom was scared.
She went on to let me know the clinic was running a special on a new body sculpting procedure…”since you’re already here she said..”
And her words pierced me. YES! That’s what I also wanted and needed, to change my body! That would erase what had happened to me and make me feel better, right? Definitely.
The woman had no idea the internal war I was in to love myself because of what happened, but it wasn’t her job to know or to fix my lack of self love. It was mine. She went on to tell me the women’s clinic had 2 parts, and was run by brothers, and they worked together to help women feel better about themselves. She said the cosmetic service was new, subtle and affordable, and could help me jump start a new me..especially after the other treatment. It was certainly an awkward time to take advantage of a two for one deal, but also I didn’t feel it was random. This felt like righting a wrong.
Did I want a new me? Hell yes! Did I want to feel better about myself? Definitely yes. Did I want to forget about why I was there! Yes! So the two treatments in one day would help that. And so I said yes and put my credit card on the desk. Or more like my dad’s credit card, so I had a lot to explain. Luckily, the charge was for the women’s clinic, but it wasn’t crazy expensive, so I stuck with the story of why I was originally there..to rid my body of what wasn’t supposed to be in there. Sorry for lying dad.
I asked the woman at the desk where to be and when, and she offered me an appointment for the next day. She also assured me that thanks to local anesthesia they’d apply early, I'd hardly feel a thing from either experience. Great news, I guess. That was me trying to cheer myself up at this silver lining I was forcing by receiving two drastically different surgical experiences on my body the following day.
I was hoping the excitement of one would erase my feelings around the other. It was a nice intention, despite being highly unrealistic.
The next morning, my Festival Friend dropped me off at the clinic, and I told him to pick me up in 2 hours and he nodded. And there I was excited and giving permission to one nice male doctor to give me an abortion and then for another to cut two tiny holes into the insides of my thighs, right beside by pubic bones, where he’d violate me in a way that I permitted this time. In a twisted way, it felt like I was getting back at my body’s unwanted entry. Take THAT trauma! You’re outta here! And now I will look, feel and be better from all this! At least that’s what I told myself.
But once I emerged from my body's treatments, I was swollen, bandaged up and sore…and I also unexpectedly felt defeated. Like I’d given power to someone else to decide what I needed to look like in order to deserve my own love. Ugh. Not the afterglow I was hoping for.
I wanted to be excited for this barely noticeable “upgrade.” I also wanted to celebrate that I wasn’t pregnant anymore, but I couldn’t feel anything because I felt numb physically and emotionally. Had I made a mistake? I couldn’t help but feel that I had violated myself, and that I had betrayed my body and not protected it, by trying to make myself look better. This time, I was the perpetrator and the victim of my own self-imposed trauma.
I got into Festival Friend’s car when he picked me up and cried, and he hugged me thinking I was crying for different reasons. But I couldn’t tell him what had really happened. Could I ever tell anyone about this self betrayal? And was I supposed to mourn an extra line on a plastic stick that existed for a blink of an eye?
I didn’t mourn because I was too confused and ashamed. It was easy for people to feel sorry for me for what happened in Steamboat, because I was a victim of something awful. But no one would feel sorry for me for what happened in Glenwood Springs, because I brought it on myself. Only I would feel quietly sorry for myself, and angry and ashamed. But I tucked it all away so no one would suspect a thing.
I stayed at Festival Friend’s house for another several days recovering, and after one night of me walking into his office and seeing him looking at porn, and him thinking he’d exited out of his computer screen in time for me not to see that, I knew it was time for me to go. But I was grateful for his generosity, and asked him if I could pay him for driving me, helping to take care of me and letting me stay. But he said no. I never told him what else happened that day at the clinic, but he had to have known. I wonder how he’d feel if he ever read this and found out that way. Wouldn’t be the first time that happened. I’d also want him to know how grateful I was for him not bringing up anything, and just letting me have my quiet healing experience in his guestroom.
When I drove home to Utah to drop off Sadie dog at my parents house and dodge any probing questions from them. I just told them the bare minimum of information, keeping them on the outside. They disapproved of my decision to go to Gauley Fest, but I didn't care. My recklessness was winning, so I then drove back to Denver to board my flight to Washington DC with my kayak and gear on the same day Reagan International airport reopened after 9/11. I remember not knowing what to expect at the airport, and no one else did either. I arrived 4 hours before my flight, and still barely made it on after taking so long to get through security and with my boat and gear safely on the plane.
I was about to paddle a difficult and sometimes dangerous river I’d never been on, with a group of guys I’d just met, in an area where I knew no one, while I was recovering both physically and emotionally from complicated multi-layered trauma. Not my best or smartest move, and almost like my carelessness was one continuous middle finger to my own life’s unfortunate circumstances. I was lost and stumbling through life. Yes I was moving forward, but there was nothing smooth or graceful about it.
It was as though I stashed my whole experience away in a private room inside my consciousness, and I closed and locked the door, and tossed away the key. I turned to alcohol, more stupid decisions and the attention of men to help me ride out the remaining waves and storms of this tumultuous time in my life.
A lot happened to me on that trip in West Virginia at Gauley fest, which involved me getting so drunk that I lost my wallet at the festival, which contained all my money, credit cards and identification. It was like I was one continuous stream of poor decisions…but someone “up there” was looking out for me, because I did eventually make it home, but not in an airplane. I ended up hitching a ride with a stranger all the way from West Virginia to Colorado. But that’s another story for another time.
I know this story was a lot to take in. I woke up on September 11, 2023 and felt called to write it, though a huge part of me also still wanted to keep it private. Because what would people think of me if they knew this about me? Ugh. Nothing good. But…there was also the perspective that in not writing it out, the trauma would stay lodged inside of me. And that doesn’t help anyone.
And sure, sharing this story was inspired by the events of 9/11…a day so big I made myself and my experience crumble beneath it. But now I see how much pain I had stored away at the time, because I was unable to handle or process it all. I made my trauma not worthy of sitting alongside the events of 9/11 that also needed to be processed. But I believe that not sharing my experience and pain in a healthy way, helped to create more pain and paved the way for my self-betrayal…it was like my soul stepped out of my body, and I just treated my body like a piece of meat to be sculpted and manipulated. I see now how important it is to acknowledge, accept, share and feel your pain, as a pathway to heal and integrate it. Which I know is no easy path to take.
But ALIGNED is helping me see that it’s ALL part of my journey, and better late than never to finally give myself compassion and forgiveness for what happened, and also maybe face judgment in sharing this story, which is tough. Hell I STILL judge myself for my actions. But I can’t change what happened or how I chose to act. I didn’t have the self-love and personal power to hold space for all that was happening to me, and I’m so sorry to my body and soul for taking it out on myself. I’m also sorry for giving up on my body and telling it I wasn’t enough and that it needed to be different, at a time when it just needed a caretaker and to be loved just for existing.
So 9/11, you’re an anniversary that comes around every year, reminding me of such a weird and complicated time in my life that was impossible to talk about. But now, I’ll see it as an invitation to love bigger and deeper, because I had the courage to share my side of the story.
Written with Love,
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