Fortunately, the damage was minimal, and insurers got off with minor losses.

Within the same week, we experienced Hurricane Irene. At home, we battened down the hatches, putting away or tying down what we feared would fly away.

Personally, as I listened to the weather reports, and with years of experience reporting on hurricanes, I was less concerned with wind than storm surge. I insisted on following Mayor Bloomberg's evacuation order, though my fiancée wanted to stay.

We did not lose power at a friend's house, which surprised me. We did experience minor flooding in the basement, something that never happened in over 20 years in that home.

Clean-up was a chore, but we took some solace from the fact that some neighborhoods on Staten Island got hit a lot worse. Just two blocks away we saw boats in the street ferrying people out of their homes.

In one community, a violent rush of water flooded their homes without warning (they were not in a flood zone). Luckily, everyone was saved, but tempers have flared and fingers are pointed at the city for not properly cleaning the local drainage system.

Now, we wait. We were told it would take time for the flood insurance adjuster to get out to us. It has been over two weeks, and our neighbors had the adjuster out to their homes a week ago. It took a call to our independent agent to finally get an appointment (points for independent producers).

There's still more cleaning to do, but we're waiting to see if the carrier will hold that promise insurers make: to help make you whole.

Then we went through this past weekend's 10^th anniversary tribute to those slain in the terror attacks on 9/11.

In some way, for me, my experience with the tribute was similar to the way I experienced that tragic event 10 years ago. I watched events unfold early in the morning on television.

Ten years ago I spent that morning alone in my apartment in New Jersey. My car was in the shop and I had no way to escape the events as they unfolded except to turn off the television and seek a diversion.

My feelings from that day are no more unique than thousands of others. At least I did not directly suffer a personal loss. Yet, I remember visiting the offices of Marsh in one of the towers some months before. I can't remember exactly when, or what the event was, but I often wonder if anyone I met that day was lost in that horrific attack.

One can't help but to shudder at such thoughts.

I went through a phase of depression, but came out of it after about a month or so after attending an agent's conference and getting out of the tri-state area. Best therapy in the world I guess.

The 10-year anniversary of Sept. 11 brought deep moments of reflection for a lot of us and some moments of anxiety.

I take a bus to the World Trade Center site now. The increase in security was apparent—and so were the traffic jams.

There was a memorial of American flags laid out in Battery Park, thousands of ghostly white flags symbolizing each of the victims of that attack.

The police and military presence became more intense as the anniversary approached. The day after, as many of us returned to work, the crush of security was obvious.

By Tuesday, there was a semblance of normalcy again. The flags were gone. The park returned to being a park. The security detail was lessened. You felt like you could breathe again.

The days pass and we put all these experiences somewhere behind us. We return to a sense of normalcy. Yet, there remains this nagging sense that life is not quite the same.