I just left my boyfriend's house headed for work.....

Sept 11, 2001 - Southwestern Ontario, Canada.

I heard it in the car on the way. Could not believe my ears.

Got to work, we all assumed it was an awful accident.

Then we heard that the second plane hit.

The execs and office staff piled into the boardroom where we could get a really cloudy CNN on the monitor.

My sales territory included NY, PA and MD. I was told I could not make any calls or bid any jobs that day, our calls should not jam desperately needed phone lines. Regardless, my rep in Somerset (15 mins from Shanksville) called me as we were bidding a job together that morning. He was in tears. He said the world forever changed that day. I was in tears. We hung up the phone and I felt an awful dread and emptiness. I got up to go home, I saw many of my coworkers had already left.

In 11 days I had to leave my children and get on a plane and fly to a convention as I so often did. But this time was woefully different. I was to fly to Atlanta where I would be staying at what was marketed as 'The Tallest Hotel In The Western Hemisphere"... the Westin Peachtree. Lovely.

On Sept 13 I took a three day road trip along Lake Superior to heal my heart, get in touch with myself, and nature. I flew home from Winnipeg on Sept 16th. The tiny airport was full of military. There were security announcements on the PA system almost constantly. I had to use a spoon to spread the cream cheese on my bagel.

On Sept 22nd, our exec team was split across several flights to Atlanta, so that there weren't too many of us on one plane. Security at O'Hare was a LIVING NIGHTMARE. Four hours at the very least to get through. When we arrived at our TALL hotel, a guest in the lobby asked were I was from and thanked me for coming back to America. We were informed that we could change our higher floor rooms to lower floor rooms if it made us feel more comfortable. My room was on the 22nd floor. Outside my window at an almost stone's throw was the CNN building. I breathed a bit of a sigh of relief, thinking to myself that terrorists would need CNN intact therefore they would never strike this building I am in.

My rate of business travel declined significantly after that, at my own choosing.