9/11

On the 10th anniversary of 9/11, I remember thinking, this is our generation's December 7th. I can read everything about December 7th, 1941, but I will never truly understand how that felt. I can read interviews with survivors and people who were there, but I will never really know what it was like for them. People will ask for many years to come, where were you on that Tuesday morning? What were you doing? Just like they still ask, what were you doing when you heard Kennedy had been shot. 

So, what were you doing, 20 years ago today? I was getting ready for work and I came downstairs and somebody had left the tv on. There was breaking news about an airplane that had hit the north tower of the World Trade Center. I was just getting ready to walk out the door, but I stopped. It was so weird. What? An airplane? Wow! How awful! Those poor people, omg. As they were talking about it, another plane came into view and flew right into the 2nd tower. Oh Shit. Now it's something completely different and everyone knew it. In that second, everyone knew that this was intentional. How can that be??? What??? Terrorist attacks in the US??  Two decades is a long time in the world of technology and media. Still, millions of people witnessed the second plane crashing into the south tower, live. It was a defining moment as people around the world experienced the events as they unfolded.  I still had to go to work though, I was late. I only worked a few minutes away from home. When I got there I immediately pulled up the news on my computer. It was hard to get into any website because everyone was trying to do the same thing and the internet was still pretty new for the general population. By then, Flight 77 had crashed into the Pentagon. There was complete chaos everywhere. The newscasters didn't even know what to say so they were saying anything. Flights were being grounded, ordered to land and not taking off at all. Schools were sending students home. We had a television in the breakroom at work and there were a couple dozen people in there, watching. I remember hearing everyone in the breakroom yell out when the first tower collapsed and run out to tell everyone in the building. I cried. I was just extraordinarily sad. I guess it was probably a little out of fear too. Fear of the unknown. What could happen. But mostly it was sadness. My heart was breaking for all those people left behind. Minutes later, another plane crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. Flight 93.

Information, misinformation, opinions, facts flooded the airwaves...for days...weeks. You couldn't turn it off. It felt disrespectful to not watch. I remember after about a week, one night my stepdaughter came into our bedroom after dinner and I had the TV on, the news of course, and she said, can we just watch a movie? For just a moment, I was so angry at her! I paused. Then I realized, she's 17. There's still life out there. And I said, yes, we can watch a movie. You pick it. She chose The Sound of Music. It was perfect. After that, I tried not to have the news on all the time. The evening news was enough.

On September 20th, President George W Bush addressed the nation in what was truly the perfect speech for a country yearning for comfort. Honestly, it didn't even matter what party you were, you loved this speech;

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/specials/attacked/transcripts/bushaddress_092001.html

We adjusted. We made compromises. We connected with other people. We grieved. We moved on.

We've never been the same though.