The World After

On 9.11.01, I was working at a data entry company with my mother. When I got to work, my mother had already been there for about an hour. I can’t remember how it started exactly. Someone was listening to the radio and I heard people saying that a plane had hit one of the World Trade Center towers. A tragic accident, we all assumed. Then reports of another plane hitting the other tower. Then a third hitting the Pentagon.

My mother looked up at me said, ‘Our country’s under attack.’

My first instinct was to think that, like normal, my mother was exaggerating – letting fear get the best of her. There were so many wild reports that day that it became easier to believe that people were perpetuating a hoax of some kind. But for three hours, the office began to huddle around the radio listening to news. It felt unreal. Impossible. This was a modern day ‘War of the Worlds’ for sure. But as it sunk in, I knew I needed to get home and see it. Needed to see the images for it to be real.

And we didn’t turn off the TV for what felt like weeks. News started scrolling at the bottom of the screen, it was coming in so fast. No one knew how to make sense of it, let alone report it. What was real and what was fake? How did this happen and who was responsible? Why?

The other thing I remember about that day… it was beautiful. The perfect temperature, clear blue sky, nice breeze… perfect. It was as though the Earth itself was mocking the awfulness that was happening - or that God wanted everyone to have a clear view of horror.

The irony of this post’s name is not lost on me. To assume that what happens in the US happens to the entire world is the same narrow-mindedness that contributed to the hate that was directed at us 8 years ago. But it is not as simple as that. Nothing about this situation is black and white. It is complicated and full of ideological issues that are so entrenched and sometimes irrational that some kind of peace seems impossible.

But this is really about how life changed in a lot of big and small ways for everyone here. The feeling of world for us changed. There’s an anxiety and pensiveness that permeates our lives. It’s not totally a matter of safety and security. It’s like that moment when you realize… I am mortal. I will one day die. I feel like our country as a whole went through that moment in our history that now shades how we move forward.

Yet, moving forward is essential. I don’t believe the best days of our country are behind us. We have so much we can accomplish for the good of the whole world. If we can fulfill the dream of our founders and honor all those that gave their service and lives for the betterment of this country, then the US can be what we’re selling it to be. But the only way to do that is to constantly push to move forward and be better. We cannot be complacent with how things are. We must always push ourselves to be a better nation than we are today.

To those that lost a loved one, I hope that you have been able to find some peace and solace in the years since. I don’t think it’s enough for us to never forget them. We have to make their deaths mean more than just the start of our collective fear, grief, and anxiety. We owe it to them to make this country better.