Where I was on September 11, 2001

September 11, 2001
Age: 11
Location: Home (Tennessee)

I was sitting in my family's kitchen watching the PBS channel as an old guy with crazy white hair who reminded me of a cross between my grandfather and Albert Einstein taught me about physics. That morning, of all mornings, my mom had decided not to watch any of the morning programs—we were used to watching them all. Good Morning, America, The Today Show, and any other morning program that we could reach through our bunny ear antennae.

"When your show's over turn the TV off," my mom had told me. I was home schooled.

But my mom wasn't in the room when my "educational show" ended so I started flipping channels. I found my self staring at two smoking towers but didn't understand what was going on. There had been a lot of talk and video of nuclear plants in the news lately as government officials talked about moving nuclear waste to the Yucca mountains in Utah. I didn't get a good view of what was smoking before thinking it was the same old debate over the waste and decided to be obedient and hit the red power button on the remote.

About four hours later at 1 p.m. my dad arrived home early from work.

"Did you not hear what happened?" He asked my mom who was surprised to see him in the middle of the day.

For the rest of the afternoon and evening my parents' eyes were glued to the TV while I tried to make sense of what was happening. It was crazy. I remember planning to move to Greenland.

My whole mindset changed. As a child you trust that time will be somewhat the same from year to year. The seasons will come and go. Your birthday and Christmas will come and go; and if something is bad this year, next year you hope it will be better.

I remember thinking, I can no longer say, 'next year will be better' when things go wrong in my life . . . because there might not even be a next year. As an 11-year-old, that was a tough concept to grasp that day.

After a while I couldn't watch the images anymore and went to my parents' room, flipped on their little black and white TV to PBS and started watching the afternoon cartoons. It was too much.

Last year I started reading a book about a September 11 survivor, and couldn't finish . . . the images she wrote about made what I understood as an 11-year-old seem like something a four-year-old should be able to grasp easily. Meaning, what really took place that day cannot be measured in any way. To me, it simply appears as a dark chasm from which evil spewed with all its force, leaving whose who were alive that day suspended at various levels within the chasm, understanding varying levels of darkness. I wasn't ready, even at the age of 20, to descend to her where she was . . . I wasn't ready to understand the day the way she did.

Yet, here we are . . . ten years later. Many are still suspended. I don't think you can really pull yourself out. It's a knowledge suspension. It stays with you. Even if what you experienced was so minute in comparison to the one's who were lucky enough to make it out of the towers that day.

For me, age 21 now . . . I still don't say things will be better next year. It's such a little thing, but when I look back . . . saying 'next year everything will be OK' when things got messed up was such a comfort for me as a 10 and 11-year-old . . . before 9-11.