why i love ap gov
09.11.02back&
forth
-------------------------------------
September 11, 2001. Since then, my day to day life has honestly, changed very little. What I have noticed that has affected me the most is something quite simple: the date. Everytime I see the month September in print or hear it, whether it be relating specifically to the year 2001 or even the 9th, I think �oh, that was x many days before/after September 11.� Immediately I can recall the day in its entirety; rhetoric, faces, everything. There are so many of these kinds of little �triggers�. I remember sometime afterwards, seeing a plane overhead while we were driving on the highway, and being sure that it was going to crash into the nearest skyscraper that fills the Miami skyline. Waiting for the impact.That it has been one year since the attacks makes me think time is such a strange thing. I remember on the six month anniversary, I was torn between the sort of disbelief that september 11 was just six months ago, that it just was a blink of an eye away and also that it felt so far behind us, that we were so far past it. This makes me think about my word choices, how we were so far past it. It has made me feel more connected to Americans everywhere because although in many different places and to different extents, we all went through that day together.
I remember the feeling of not being sure if my friends in New York were okay, knowing they went to school in the city. The tremendous relief of seeing their names on AOL (america on line; what a pun) later that night, and then getting off the computer because I didn�t want to use any phone lines. Knowing how close my dad�s office was to the world trade center, that part of his building was in ruins. All this though, and still all the feelings of it being like a movie: unreal and very far away from here, from home. I remember coming home, and after watching the news for hours with my family, coming and sitting at this same computer (I can even remember the font) and writing, wanting to document those feelings. I wrote because I didn�t want to forget. Even with the distance one year had put on the event, I read over what I wrote today and it feels fresh, raw and open, again. �I just feel so faint, with this taste in my mouth in my stomach in me. I don�t know how to react to this, I just keep crying. I feel as though a part of me has died in the remains of the explosions. That a plane has torn through my heart�� The next day was the most difficult. It felt wrong, but good, to laugh about trivial things. I wrote, �Then. Going through the motions�remembering (Yesterday).� And that�s why over the weekend and tonight, I watched the news coverage with my family. All of us together again. We learned exactly why the building fell, how it was built and structured (the first skyscraper made to resist the impact of a plane, a boeing 707, the biggest and most complex commercial aircraft at the time).
And I�m glad I am writing this. Because I never want to forget.
-------------------------------------
archive.
profile.
notes.
random.