I guess I expected it to feel different. I kept saying over and over, mentally and to the people I was with, "I can't believe it's been 10 years, I can't believe it's been 10 years". To be perfectly honest, a part of me still can't even believe it actually happened. I read an observation from someone yesterday that articulated my exact feelings and thoughts so perfectly I feel compelled to share it:
When I was a little girl, I coudln't understand why someone would crash a plane on purpose. Now, ten years later, it's even harder to understand.
I was 14 when September 11th, 2001 happened. I had a dream either the night before, or a couple nights before, that something really terrible happened. (To this day, anytime I have a catastrophic dream like that, I always check the New York Times website to make sure that nothing bad has happened). I remember waking up shortly after the first tower had been hit, when we still thought it was an accident. I also remember getting ready for one of my first days of high school in my bathroom upstairs, listening slightly to the news my mom had on the television downstairs, when the second tower was hit.
At first, I didn't really understand the significance of it. My little sister was terrified, especially given that at this point, it was all but blatant that America had been attacked, and we didn't know what else was planned. My dad was working in one of the tallest buildings on the West Coast in San Francisco at the time - a building that, if the terrorists were looking to hit skyscrapers, could have easily been one of the next targets on the list. Worried for his safety, at the insistence of my baby sister and more-or-less forced to by airport closures, my dad rented a car and drove home from Northern California that night.
I tried to be strong for her - my natural reaction is to act like things aren't a big deal, even if I know that they are. I dismissed it, didn't grasp how truly tragic it was - afterall, I was just a teenager watching these events unfold on TV, like a disaster movie from the comfort of a theatre. It didn't really seem real until the towers started to fall. That was the exact moment in time when I understood the human toll these events were taking. Before, when it had just been those few floors effected, it didn't seem quite as bad. But sitting there, watching images of those enormous towers collapse upon themselves, all I could think about were the people inside. And that is precisely when my heart began to break.
I think part of the reason this milestone in immortalizing this event seems so strange to me, is that I so clearly can hear my dad telling me, a couple days later as I was looking through a magazine and crying about what happened, "Meghan, this is something that is going to be in the history books. You will someday tell your kids about this when they ask you about September 11th."A day that used to only be just another day on the calendar as the summer turned to fall would become an iconic "day that will forever live in infamy", just like that event on December 7th in Pearl Harbor that I learned about in my textbooks. And now, ten years later, I can truly understand what he meant.
The other thing that makes this tenth anniversary so strange, is that this is the first time I can clearly remember something so major effecting me so much. Not that this is in any way, shape or form is about me - I was seeing this tragedy from the eyes of a 9th grader on the complete opposite side of the country. I didn't know anyone who had perished, and I don't think at that point in my life I even knew anyone who knew anyone who had passed. And yet, all that aside, it still left such a huge emotional scar.
Although I remember all of these horrible things, the other thing that I so clearly remember is how much pride I felt at seeing our country come together during the time of tragedy. I always find it so interesting that in times of utter darkness, the grace of people finds a way to shine through the smoke and bring peace. If it weren't for grace - the grace of people, the grace of community, and the grace of God - events like September 11th would be so much more tragic. Flight 93 is a perfect example of how something so horrible creates the absolute portrait of what it means to live an honrable life - I am still so proud to call those who died as heros my fellow citizens.
Although the news channels and internet were flooded yesterday with content about the 10th anniversary, I only read one article. I didn't post anything to Facebook or Twitter or really even discuss it with anyone, other than my periodical statements about the time lapse since it occured. I felt like the only people I could have watched any documentaries about it with (because there is no way on Earth I could endure something like that by myself) were my parents, because they are the only people who truly understand how much something so detached from my life personally, except as an American citizen, affected me.
Even though ten years is a long time for a twenty-something like me, I can still envision those smoking towers, that wreckage in the Pennsylvania field, the iconic Pentagon with a plane splitting it in two. Those emotional wounds are still so raw that, even after a decade, just reading that one article brought tears to my eyes and a familiar sense of fear into my soul. It is still so raw, that I can't imagine having watched an entire day's coverage of it all again. It would have felt like the worst possible kind of deja-vu.
Instead, I chose to remember it in my own way. By writing about it and thinking about it, and realizing that because it happened in my lifetime, it will always be a part of my personal history. I will always remember walking by that hole in the skyline during my time in New York City three summers ago, and getting an eerie feeling that something was supposed to be there. I will always remember going to Ground Zero, 3 and a half years after the attacks, and seeing how much damage there still was, and how much work there was left to do to repair it. And I will always remember the steel beam cross, found in the wreckage, draped in the American flag that symbolized that although broken, with the help of God, we would persist.
My heart aches for those who lost someone. For the children who are now old enough to comprehend what happened to their loved ones. For the parents who lost a child too soon because of the senselessness of a confused religious extremism. I will never be able to understand how people can kill in the name of God, but I take comfort in knowing that they will someday get their justice. And that, through their violence, America came together, stronger than ever, and has remained as such ever since. Funny how things backfire for those who do not consider all of the possible consequences of their actions.
9/11/01. Never forget.
♥mb.
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