10 Years Isn’t an Eternity
When you’re a kid, ten years seems like forever.
An eternity that will never arrive.
When you’re 13, you want to be 16 so that you can drive. When you’re 16 you want to be 18 so you can graduate. When you’re 18 you want to be 21 so that you can drink and be considered an “adult.” Time doesn’t move quick enough and you’re always reaching for that next thing…that next goal…that next milestone.
Ten years ago this week seems like yesterday.
I know the whole world will be stopping to remember their whereabouts on 9/11.
It’s hard to fathom just how long ago it was. How much our country has changed; the opposition we have encountered, and the perseverance through which we’ve fought this war.
It feels like yesterday when I watched those towers fall. I’ll never forget that day…forget my whereabouts. Forget who I was with…
I was sitting in my high school Pre-Algebra Class…I can’t remember the room number, but I remember the surroundings. Remember that we were doing Quadratic Equations on the overhead projector. I was sitting in the 6th seat back, second row from the right side of the room. My friends surrounded me: Danielle to the front, Matt behind me (with Shea behind him), Melissa to the right….
It was a normal day. Another day just like all the others we’d experienced as 9th graders so far. We were passing Strawberry Cream Savers back and forth and wishing that our class would end. We got the strange announcement from the principal to stop all of our work and turn on the television. SCORE! We thought…An excuse to get out of doing our classwork…
When we turned on the station, the first plane had just hit the World Trade Center. Hushed whispers filled the room as our young minds tried to figure out how someone could be stupid enough to fly a plane into such a big building. It was surreal. Watching something so significant unfold. Our teacher started talking about the 1993 bombing, and how unusual it was the Towers had been there for so long without anyone ever flying into them.
Then we saw it.
The second plane.
Careening right towards its target.
The second tower of the World Trade Center.
We knew.
Everyone knew.
This wasn’t an accident.
It was a fluke.
It wasn’t a mistake.
It was an attack.
A deliberate and hatred filled attack on our country. On our nation. On our freedom and our people.
Again, we were transfixed by the sheer devastation of it.
For the longest time we just sat…watching. No one spoke. No one barely breathed. We just watched…trying to comprehend how something so terrible could have possibly just happened.
The rest of the day was spent with books closes and eyes on the screens of the TV’s in our classrooms. No one taught. No one lectured. We just watched as history unfolded before our very eyes. Watched as the world changed right in front of us.
We did discuss the reality of it with our teachers. Acknowledged that we now lived in a different society. A society plagued by an impending war and terrorism. A society devastated by an attack on our own land, against our own people.
I was filled with anger. With hatred. With disgust for the people that would do and COULD do something so heartless. Something so devastating to a nation so great.
I’ve never felt pride in my country the way that I did that day, and every day since. I stayed glued to the news coverage for weeks after the attack. Watching the story continue to unfold. Learning who this Osama bin Laden character was and wondering if we’d ever catch him. I bought every News Stand magazine that covered the events. I read the newspapers. I transfixed myself with CNN and HLN before school.
We were, and still are, living in a world changed.
None of us will ever be the same as we were before that day.
Everything about our great nation shifted that day.
I’ll remember that day the way that my grandparents remembered Pearl Harbor.
And I’ll remember those lives lost, those sacrifices made, and the freedom that rang true. And still rings.
Where were you on 9/11? Do you still remember it like it was yesterday?
Linking up to Mama Kat’s Writers Workshop today…
10 years does go by fast… I was just telling Sean last night I’m still not ready to watch it all over again this weekend on TV. I haven’t seen it replayed since I saw it live on 9/11. I can’t bear it.
I was a senior, sitting in my 2nd Period Economics class goofing off when a teacher ran down the hall way saying we were being attacked. She said the WTC towers were hit, the Pentagon was hit and there is a plane heading for the White House now… we are at war.
I remember crying and wanting to throw up as we watched the events unfold on tv. I was watching live as both towers fell and as the other plane went down in Pennsylvania. We didn’t do any more class work that day… in fact, we were allowed to go home but none of this. We wanted to be together. I still remember the strange silence all weekend without planes constantly flying over us.
Sean will be watching stuff this weekend but I can’t… I’m still not ready 10 years later.
*none of us DID want to go home* I can’t write…
It’s still so hard to fathom. I’ve been watching the news today…seeing the recaps and the replays of that day….it still feels so fresh, even 10 years later.
Eek, I got chills reading this like everybody else.
I was in school too, though I don’t remember exactly what class. I’m Canadian and I assure you we were glued to CNN as much as any American, for weeks after.
Thanks girl. I think this event brought everyone together…whether they were American or not.
Yes, I definitely remember. I was, like you, in High School in Mrs. Jones’s Honors English class…this woman was one who didn’t stop teaching for anything and she came rushing into the room and turned on the TV and there we sat, watching it for the entire class, the entire day. I didn’t know what the Twin Towers really even were until that day, until they weren’t there anymore. So sad and I CANNOT believe that’s already been 10 years ago…think about how our kids are going ot think we’re “So old” because we remember every detail of that day?
That’s what I was thinking…Noah’s going to think I’m so old when we start talking about it.
It doesn’t seem long at all. I was a travel agent. Driving to work… It was insane. I can’t believe you were just a teen! I am old LOL
LOL You’re not old! Not old at all! 🙂
I agree with Kimberly – your post gave me chills, Courtney! And it is difficult to believe that it’s already been a decade.
Thanks girl. It seems like yesterday.
Vivid, chilling.
Thank you, Galit.
Your guest post is up at my site. Sorry it took so long 😛
No worries. Thanks Jenny! I’ll do a writeup about it this week!
I live in northern NJ and have many friends who live and work in NYC. Thankfully I did no lose any of them on 9/11. I know what you mean about it not feeling like it’s been ten years since that happened. A few years after the attack my husband and I spent the weekend in NYC and stayed in a hotel that basically overlooked Ground Zero. I remember telling a friend, “I wish they would just put something there already. It’s like a big open wound just sitting there.”
I think it will always feel like an open wound…nothing they put there will ever truly erase or ease the memory of what went on there.
This is such an emotive piece. Thank you so much for sharing it. I can’t imagine what it must have been like seeing it live. It was bad enough watching the news that evening here in the UK. I do hope that as we all share the memories that as a world we become closer.
Thank you so much. It was…gut-wrenching to say the least. Definitely not a day I will ever forget.
This gave me chills. Every story relating to this attack still send shivers down my spine. I will never ever forget that day, or the moment I found out.
Same here. Watching the reruns and the stories on TV still gets to me.