BOMBS IN LONDON

I feel sort of obligated to write something about the terrorist tube bombings in London, since everyone is asking me about them. I was far away in a different part of London at the time.

There are people for whom these attacks represent a very real personal tragedy. As terrible as this may sound, I don't feel nearly as sorry for those whose deaths were probably instantaneous as I do for those who are now having to live through an aftermath that represents a drastic change to their personal lives. People who have lost limbs, and have entered a new phase of life called "being handicapped," people who are suddenly without family members, and those who love someone who is still listed as missing.

But for me, I'm far away from this. What I've been struck by, when engaging in pub conversations, listening to friends and coworkers, or reading the eyewitness accounts in the BBC is how much we all play this game of "six degrees of separation" from tragedy.

I do this myself. Immediately after hearing of the blasts, I had to go to the BBC website and see where they occurred, and then do a series of calculations to see just how much I could make this about me. Were any of the bombs on trains I took every morning as part of my commute before I moved? Were they at the right time? Were they on the tube line at the same time of day as I was on Monday morning?

Is there any way I could say, "Omigod, if I hadn't moved, I TOTALLY would have been on that train!"

Everyone's doing this. You hear things like, "My brother's sister's boyfriend was going to work this morning, and at the last minute, he realised he left something at home, and went back, and omigod, if he hadn't, he TOTALLY would have been on that train."

The "eyewitness accounts" are what finally got to me. There are all of these stories people have sent in that go something like this:

"I was walking along the street, and I saw all of these policemen, and they wouldn't let me pass, and nobody would tell us what had happened. So I left, and now I realise that it was because a bus had exploded, and now I'm really freaked out because it's hit me JUST HOW CLOSE I WAS to that accident."

What are we doing? I've gone from finding this really, really funny to being horrified by all of us, myself included. This is a very real personal tragedy for some people, and we are all wandering around like high schoolers, trying to figure out just how much attention we can get for ourselves, just which of us can win the prize for Most Sensitive Girl Seriously Affected by the Tragedy.

It's almost like we envy those who were in the next carriage. Not close enough to suffer any injury, not close enough to feel any real pain (except for those who now, for very real and very legitimate reasons, really WILL be afraid to travel from now on and have a right to own that fear), but just close enough to be the coolest person they know for the forseeable future.