Eleven Years Later

I, like most anyone that was alive at the time, can still remember that day in excruciating detail.

I remember there was just a different feel to everything. Even as I got ready for school, I could hear my dad watching the Today Show upstairs, and though it was just noise to me--I could sense  in the anchors' voices that something was off.  When I left for school, only the first plane had hit, and they still weren't sure whether it was an accident or something more sinister. I remember talking about it with my carpool friends, it was Lindsay's turn to drive that day, and we were all just as confused as the rest of the world.

The teacher of my first class, regrettably, did not have the TV on and was trying to keep our minds off anything that was happening outside our classroom. We were all extremely frustrated with her.

By the time I got to my second class of the day, the second plane had struck and both towers had fallen.  I think the Pentagon had been hit, and they were just getting word about flight 93 crashing in Pennsylvania.   Thankfully, that class was AP History, and we could do nothing but sit together, glued to the TV.  Watching history.  I remember there was a lot of speculation about who was responsible, and I'll never forget that a classmate of mine, a mere 15 or 16-year-old, mentioned that he thought it would end up being a man named Osama Bin Laden.

As the day wore on, most of my teachers tried to strike a balance between letting us watch the news, and trying not to let us feel too worried or scared, but how could they? I remember sitting with my volleyball team in our coach's office, again glued to the TV as more and more details unfolded. We had a game that night, and although there was a moment of silence beforehand, it didn't feel like enough, and it was really difficult to put our hearts into it.

I remember getting in my car to go home afterwards and listening to President Bush's address on the radio.  And when I finally got home, I lost it. I just sat there, with the rest of the country, a stream of tears flowing, watching the news replay the crashses and the towers falling, over and over and over. All the while, the death toll numbers steadily rising.

It was, and still is, horrifying.

But even as I sit here typing, just miles from the Pentagon and a stone's throw from the Capitol, it isn't fear that overwhelms me, but sadness for the families who lost someone, and a sense of defiance.  Because we are here.  The Capitol still stands, thanks to the incredibly brave people aboard flight 93, and America is still awesome.  We have our faults--to be sure, but if there's one thing America does well, it's live.  We didn't retreat to our bubbles and settle for mediocrity. We've lived. We still ride airplanes, we still move to New York and DC, we are still free to worship and vote and say and do as we please. If we choose to live in fear, to be slaves to caution or paranoia and huncker down in our hovels, they win.  To quote some incredible Americans infinitely more articulate than I will ever be:

"Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy." - Dale Carnegie

"Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold." - Helen Keller

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain

So suck on that fear-mongering terrorists.