9/11

September 11th, 2001 is no doubt one of the most significant events any of us will ever live through, but I was so young when it happened - only nine. I feel like I'm constantly trying to catch up. To understand what happened, why every person put a flag on their front porch. To mourn with every American who felt sadness on that day, no matter how late I may be. I always feel guilt when I remember how my heart didn't ache when my mama and I stood in front of our television set and watched the planes crash over and over again.

Every following year on the "anniversary of 9/11" - as people on the news still love calling it, us students were required to write a paper - sometimes just a paragraph - on where we were when we learned about September 11th. I never knew what to tell the teachers, though, so my papers were either blank or fabricated. That's because my memories are shadowy at best - I remember the faces of my teachers crying, their whispers, seeing the smoke, the bus ride home, wondering if my grandpa was okay, and hoping my trip to the Stokes County Fair that night wouldn't be cancelled. And how do you tell that to a teacher in a paper? "On September 11th, 2001, I worried most about getting the cotton candy my mama promised me." I was only in Fourth grade, mind you. But still.

Now I mostly remember the sunshine of the day, how it warmed everything. How the school year was still so new, my clothes were so new - how everything in September always feels so new. But then the black smoke came through and tainted everything, and I never really understood. Sometimes I still don't understand. After September 11th life was narrated by a string of overly-patriotic country songs. And fear. Complaints about airport security. What were you doing when it happened? The flags. The God Bless Americas. What ever happened to September 10th? Our country looked like a perpetual Fourth of July. And time went by, drawn by slow horses.

And that was then. These days I feel like I'm constantly having delayed reactions to September 11th. Last year the day fell on a Saturday, and I wrote this in my journal: "How can life still go on today? How can my daddy be at the dump right now, and how can my mother be waddling through the kitchen looking for bubble wrap? I feel like this should be the only thing on anyone’s mind. Death and planes and buildings are terrible things to fill a Saturday with."

Even though it was sunny, I stayed in bed all day that day listening to Chris Garneau's song "Saturday," which very appropriately mentions the stopping of time. It was like I was finally reacting to what had happened ten years ago. Ten years. I also wrote: "I feel like the whole world should be required to stop today. I don’t feel like anyone should be able to function on the anniversary of 9/11. Maybe because it seems to be all anyone has talked about for so long. Maybe because it truly was awful, and I was too young for my heart to ache when it actually happened, when the world really did stop." And I felt the same thing earlier today when I stumbled across Jon Stewart's reactions to the events on the internet.

But even now I'm not sure if I'm reacting to what really happened or if I'm only reacting to reactions. I can understand - but I can only understand objectively. I'll never know what it felt like to hear the news for the first time - or rather, to hear the news and understand for the first time. My memories are still mere shadows, faces, and facts. Somedays I wish I could just go back in time and be older, wiser. And not in Fourth grade. Maybe then September 11th would mean what it's supposed to mean to me.