It seems oddly appropriate that this week marks the 15th anniversary of the bombing here in Oklahoma City. I remember it so well; I was sitting in second-hour Current Events, nine miles almost due south of the site. I was in the ninth grade, this stupid “honors” class where the teacher – an apathetic coach – would spend most every day reading the paper and tell us to be quiet and concentrate on whatever lame busy work he came up with.

I didn’t feel the blast. I didn’t notice the ground shaking or the walls vibrating. Nobody in our class did, at least not enough to say anything. They came over the intercom and said that if anyone had a parent who worked downtown, they should come to the office immediately. A couple people got up and nervously exited the room; it seemed an odd request. Then, once all those kids had been informed, they came over again and told us there had been an “explosion.” There was no mention of a bomb, or a terrorist; none of that was known at the time.

Ten years and about a week later, I started dating Brian. He lived around the corner from the site of the bombing, in an apartment building that had been damaged in the blast and renovated with federal money earmarked for restoring the area. That summer, he and I and a few of our friends dropped an old watermelon into the alley through which Timothy McVeigh had made his escape. It fell through space, hit the ground and exploded, as old watermelons dropped from four-story rooftops will do.

It feels like a bomb has gone off in our lives. Like our ears are ringing, our vision is cloudy and like we might have to learn how to walk all over again. Debris everywhere; on Sunday Brian and I went to Brett’s apartment to clean out some things. Now our house looks like someone has just moved in. I keep telling myself that it’s just stuff, just the flotsam and jetsam that clings to us all as we swim through life. Barnacles. Objects. Collections of atoms that, according to physicists, can be neither created nor destroyed, but only transformed.

People ask us how we’re doing. Brian says, “We’re safe, but we’re not okay,” which I think just about covers it. My answer is, “I don’t know.” I don’t know how we are. I don’t know where we are or what all of this means.

The last two nights Brian and I have fallen asleep on the sofa watching television. This is something we do a lot; this is normal. But it feels weightier now. Heavier. Life is leaden. It feels weird to do something normal. But life is continuing. We’re both back at work, the plants are coming up in the garden, the sun is rising and setting.

There’s debris, inside and out. And it’s all going to have to go somewhere. For right now, though, we’re just learning how to walk again, slowly. One small, small step at a time.