10 years and 1 day.

I noticed a lot of posts of blogs and Facebook and Twitter yesterday about the tenth anniversary of September 11.  I did think about writing something, but in some ways, I feel like we, as a nation, are not defined by that day, but by the day after.

I was a senior in high school.  When Mrs. H. interrupted our floriculture class, we all knew something was up.  Ms. C.-C. returned, clearly shaken and said, "Students, the United States has been attacked in New York."  I didn't know it until that moment, but her daughter was in the armed services, and she knew in that moment, it likely meant that war was imminent.

When we left that class, the hallways were loud.  No one knew what to make of what we had seen.  In gym class, Mr. F. made us go outside to play boom bat.  (Boom bat is like baseball with all foam bats and balls.  It is the dumbest game ever.)  In a move that was rather defiant for this group of seniors, we walked off the field, walked back inside, and demanded that someone let us watch the news.  For the rest of the day, we went in and out of lessons and watching the news, even though our principal tried to tell the teachers not to let us watch tv.

I wondered then and still don't understand why he thought by not watching the news he could shield us from what was happening.  Our world was changing and closing our eyes and ears wouldn't stop it from happening.  In AP English, my favorite teacher of all time, Mr. R., canceled his lesson plan and allowed us to have an open discussion of what we were thinking and feeling.  The range of emotions was huge.  To be honest, I didn't really feel anything.  I hadn't made sense of it yet, so how could I form feelings?

We learned late in the day on September 11 that a classmate's father worked in Tower A.  She spent the morning frantically calling him, unable to get through.  It turned out that he was caught at home a few extra minutes that day and missed his train.  It still gives me goosebumps to think about that.

But, back to what I was saying about the next day.  The next day, I got up and went to school.  My parents went to work.  They did not break us.  Over time, we revisited the topic of September 11 and people were still emotional about what it meant for the future.  This year, when I learned of the death of Osama bin Laden by U.S. troops, I again didn't know what to feel.  I am no longer the 17 year old who lived September 11, 2001.  The death of the mastermind behind the attacks did cause some sense of closure, but I wondered if it would change anything.

I do not talk about feeling patriotic often.  I try to take things on from a worldly perspective and sometimes I disagree with the moves we make as a country.  However, I do recognize how lucky I am to live here.  For all of our faults, there are greater things that define us.  We are a nation that will not forget.  We are a nation that keeps going.  They did not break us.