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.