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I was 8 years old watching 9/11 on TV. My brother was sitting next to me giggling and I got mad at him. I don't know why I got mad at him, he was 5. Did I expect him to understand?
That day really affected me. I was 8, but I understood what was happening.
That day really affected me. I was 8, but I understood what was happening.
I had studied World War II for a few months at that point. I remember I asked my mom if this was like Pearl Harbor. I was really scared. For years, and even really to this day, I don't like tall buildings. I don't like being around them. My anxiety peaks in large cities.
We were just kids and we watched those buildings fall. We were just kids and we saw adults, who went to work in a tall building like my dad did that morning, jumping from the building and falling to their deaths. My siblings probably don't remember, but I do. I can't forget.
And we talk about the effect that had on the nation, but there's millions of kids like me, who watched that and understood it and remember it. That's probably the first real major event we remember. I was born in a pre-9/11 world, but I don't remember any of it.
The memory of my life as it pertains to the world is one catastrophic event, followed by war, and economic downturn, and panic, and pandemic. So when people say "Never Forget," it feels a bit condescending and insulting, you know?
How could I forget the moment that I understood what our world was? How could I forget the fear I felt, and the fear I saw in my mom? How could I forget that my life has been marked by a series of catastrophes overseen by people who should have known better?
And here I am, at 27 years old, still reflecting on that day. Still wrestling with that feeling of uncertainty and fear. Still seeing more and more cataclysmic events being mismanaged by people who should know better.
But you say never forget.
But you say never forget.
I would pay to forget. I would love for 9/11 to become a distant memory, to become history. But Americans are still so insistent on reliving that fear and trauma that we just keep doing it year in and year out. The anger and fear have become home for us.
Every year, we do this again. "Never forget," plastered on every corner of our culture. But we're not remembering it, we're reliving it. We're stuck in it. We can't get out of it.
I would love it if we could just remember it without reliving it.
I would love it if we could just remember it without reliving it.
Our nation never set the bone from that fracture, it just healed and now it's a deformity. A weakened limb, because we choose every year to continue to live in the fear and anger that we all felt that day.
Those kids like me are adults now. We're all dealing with the reality that our parents and grandparents didn't really deal with 9/11, they just got really scared and hid in anger and fear. We're dealing with those consequences.
Like I said, I would pay to forget. But I can't.
We should remember. We should remember those we lost. But we need to learn to move on from 9/11. I don't know. Just a thought from the scared kid watching the world change live on TV.
We should remember. We should remember those we lost. But we need to learn to move on from 9/11. I don't know. Just a thought from the scared kid watching the world change live on TV.
