Last year my girlfriend and I went to New York city to celebrate the coming of 2004. One of our stops, or places to see, was the site of the 9/11 terrorist attacks – ground zero. I quickly snapped off a few shots with my digital camera (at the time I had a Sony S85.) It was a nice camera because it had shutter and aperture modes, but it tended to be big to lug around so I got rid of it a while back. It is now replaced with a Canon S400 – much smaller, but no aperture or shutter modes.

I chose this shot to be first because it carries a lot of significance to me. At the time that I took it I was living in Atlanta and had just graduated from college. After graduating things were not looking bright. I had no job and I was running out of options: it was either find some kind of part-time work, or move back to Florida to live with the folks. My relationship with L, the girlfriend of 2 years who I cared about very much, wasn’t doing too hot either. So needless to say I wasn’t the happiest person alive.

Some time passed and I was able to find work buying myself some more valuable time with L, and a chance to experience living in my own apartment. I offered her the option of living together, but she wanted no part of it. The months that followed didn’t feel right: I didn’t enjoy my work at all, and having most of my college buddies move away made me feel like maybe I don’t belong there. I decided that maybe it’s my job that’s causing me all the grief, so I decided to give Atlanta another try by finding new work – a task which didn’t prove to be much easier the second time around.

Things got even more complicated because in the summer of 2004, my grandmother passed away unexpectedly. She was always close to us, and my whole family and I were strongly impacted by the whole experience. It literally happened out of nowhere. One week she was completely fine, and the next she had a sudden heart attack and passed away in one night. As soon as I found out, I caught the first flight down to Florida to be with my family. It was a difficult time for us all.

When I got back to Atlanta, I felt even more pressure to have my life in order, so the intensity of needing to change my circumstances was raised to a whole new level. Within a week I was able to find new work doing consulting for an Atlanta based company. I was excited to have this new opportunity, and felt like things were looking a little bit brighter.

Unfortunately the relationship with L was deteriorating fast, and with time I began to realize that Atlanta is just not the right place for me. I had no idea what would be the right place, but my gut feeling told me that Atlanta was not it. Even when I was a freshman in college, I knew that I would not end up settling there after graduating. I decided to talk to my management and see if they would let me relocate to Florida; back with my parents for now while I figure things out.

The conversation went like this:

“Mr. Manager, would you object to me changing my home base to Florida? My lease is about to expire, and I think I want to move back there to be closer to my family.”

“Well Arkady, I really don’t think it would be a problem at all. As long as you’re near an airport, it doesn’t matter to us where you live.”

As I was walking out of his office, I realized something: I’m young, and I don’t have much to lose at this point in my life. Why not move to a big city? Why not move to New York City? It had always fascinated me, and I have a perfect opportunity to experience it first hand.

It didn’t take long to convince myself, and within a period of 2 months: I had gotten in touch with an old friend of mine, flown up to the City, and was lucky enough to find a great apartment where I am currently sitting and writing this.

A lot has changed: my girlfriend and I finally split up, I left the city where I spent almost 7 years most of which were college years, and now I am starting my life over practically from scratch.

When I stood there, at ground zero on December 31st 2003, I thought about how intense the experience must have been for people that were there on that terrible day. I wondered how those people could go on after having lost their loved ones. But as I looked around, I saw new construction – people were going on with their lives. Although there was a huge gaping hole in place where the two towers stood before, with time, new buildings would be built in its place, and things would return to normal.

For me, 2004 brought bad luck – lots of which has left me with a big hole in my heart. When I look at this picture, it reminds me that life goes on, and that with time, I will find the courage and strength needed to rebuild the missing pieces in my life.