Re: Ten Years Later

Like everyone else, I remember exactly where I was when I first heard about the attack. I was inside my high school and walking in between classes. One of my best friends stopped me and said that a terrorist plane had flown into the World Trade Center. This happened to be a friend with whom I had an almost exclusively sarcastic rapport so I initially thought he was joking. But, within a couple of minutes word had spread about what was really happening and I didn't know what to think. At the time, my father was living in Manhattan so I remember wanting to get in touch with him to make sure he was OK. I was unable to do so for a few hours and remember feeling more uneasy about that specific uncertainty than about the broader attack. Eventually, one of my siblings contacted me to assure me that our father was OK.

I went right home after school ended and started watching coverage of the attack. Every once in a while I would go outside and stand on my front lawn. Downtown Manhattan is less than 30 miles from my hometown so I was able to see clearly the clouds of smoke in the sky. I came back to the television and except for a couple of brief phone calls I just sat and watched for hours. My first class the next day was Spanish. Clearly, no one was sure how they should be acting. We had a substitute teacher for that whole year and he asked us to write about how we felt in Spanish. The rest of the next few days were filled discussing if anyone knew people in the plane or building. There was at least one former student from my high school who was killed, but I did not know anyone personally who was directly affected.

I don't remember feeling afraid or even angry. I don't think I had the cognitive ability to even process the gravity of what had just taken place. For a sophomore in high school who had practically no true sense of international events, let alone global terrorism, the event seemed surreal. The footage of burning buildings and crowds of people running away from smoke seemed like a movie. What I do remember thinking though was that I had just taken part in history somehow. More so than any other immediate feeling was this idea that I had witnessed something important for the first time. Whether you call it the "loss of innocence" or not, it was unequivocally the first event that I felt a part of that had significance beyond my own life.

What's paradoxical is that the further I get from the actual event the sadder I've become when thinking back on it. I could barely watch the 10 year anniversary coverage this last weekend without wanting to change channels immediately. At first, I thought that maybe I was just taking the easy way out and letting myself off the hook by keeping my attention on more mundane activities. But, even just seeing the front of every magazine cover, with the photos of people jumping to their deaths or the second plane about to crash into the tower, I realize that I've been affected by this event in ways I don't consciously recognize. The plane in the photo actually does look like a weapon now.

I'm not the bravest person in the slightest, but I don't worry too much about my safety living in Manhattan. I notice the extra policeman in the subway stations around the anniversary week, but for me this actually has the intended effect of making me feel safer. I walked by ground zero nearly everyday of the work week during my first two years of professional life. Whether I was too busy trying to get to work or I just had something else on my mind, I didn't think about 9/11 during this time. What's unfortunate is that there is so much construction and distraction in general in New York City that during the hustle of a regular day you can forget that the reason this new building is being put up is completely different than the reason some other new building is being put up. But, when I hear people use the phrase "9/11" I do feel this pang of sadness. This is especially so when people talk about the event in a context other than commemoration. It's hard not to think about the events that took place after 9/11 and in a lot of ways in response to 9/11. This is when I start to feel really disheartened. It's not always clear to me how I've changed as a result of this event, but I do know that it's one of the only issues I feel deep sadness about that didn't involve personal loss.

Ten years later

Gentlemen,

Almost ten years ago to the day, everything changed. Everything. 9/11 is one of a few ubiquitous phrases that isn't merely a "sign of the times" buzzword. It doesn't have the same playful innocence as words like Google, Facebook, or Twitter. However, like those words, 9/11 had no particular significance before that harrowing Tuesday a decade ago. It was just a date on the calendar. Now, those three numbers carry a somber and ever-present reminder that the world we live in is far different from that of our parents.

I find it only appropriate to reflect back now on how September 11, 2001 impacted us. Where were you? What were your immediate thoughts? How has it affected you to this day? And what images or memories does your mind conjure when you hear 9/11?

For us especially, it came at a particularly meaningful time. I was a 14 year old high school freshman 5 days into a brand new private school where the only people I knew were the handful of classmates that came with me from North Reading.

Gym class was my first period of the day. Over the loud speaker, Mr. O'Neill, our septuagenarian disciplinarian (you're damn right that rhymes) and golf coach came over the PA system. His voice is hard to describe: at once deep, powerful and commanding--but also comforting. If James Earl Jones and Barry Manilow had a child, his voice would sound like the man we affectionately refer to as Larry O.

I remember my first thought was "wow a pilot accidentally hit a skyscraper?" Then came the words that I will remember verbatim forever: "We believe this to be part of a wide scale terrorist attack on the United States of America."

Terrorism at this point was hardly part of my regular vocabulary. I remember reading about the USS Cole in eighth grade (also my first introduction to Osama bin Laden), but that happened in Yemen--light years away from American soil.

I didn't understand at the time how it would affect our country, our generation, or our world. Since that day, we've witnessed unprecedented national pride, two never-ending wars, the first black president, the deaths of thousands of young American soldiers, the killing of Osama bin Laden, and country more partisan and more divided than at any point since the American Civil War. For better, or for worse, 9/11 has shaped the world in which we live.

For me, my childhood ended on September 11, 2001. "Loss of innocence" is one of the literary archetypes, but that's not what happened that day. It was the loss of something different--something more, and something more personal. It was the loss of the world I knew, and the safety and security that came from living in that world.

It was the loss of a world, I must admit, I wish we could all go back to.