10 Years

10 Years

520 Weeks

3,650 Days

87,600 Hours

5,256,000 Minutes

315,360,000 Seconds

...since this...

I can only imagine that in the few hours it took for this horrific day to happen the people of NYC have not gone one of those seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, or years without thinking about that day.

I was a freshman in high school. I remember walking down the hall in between classes and a friend of mine saying, "Did you hear a plane flew into the World Trace Centers?" I had been to NYC so I knew what the World Trade Centers were. However, the reality of that question flew in one ear and out the other. I asked if anyone got hurt. My friend looked at me like I was a moron. I quickly understood that someone had to get hurt if a plane flew into a building, but the reality of what that actually meant would not be realized until hours later.

At lunch that day, we discussed it some in conversation, but no one knew exactly what had happened for sure. Rumors were circulating, but we still had no idea the magnitude of this event or that we would never think of September 11th the same again.

In my last class of the day, reality began to become all too real. We watched the news for the entire class period and watched the second plane crash into the second tower over and over again. We watched the towers fall on replay over and over again. We watched people run for their lives and jump to their death. We listened to reporters speculate about what was going on and what this meant for our county. We watched coverage of the Pentagon and listened to the possibility that a plane crash in Pennsylvania might be related.

We left school that day in a daze, trying to take it all in. My aunt drove me home and we sat in the living room and watched the coverage for several more hours. We got word that my uncle who works in NYC was okay and not affected...well, not affected physically in terms of being harmed. He was definitely affected.You couldn't not be affected by this tragic event.

And, now...here we are 10 years later. It's amazing how fast 10 years goes by. In ten years, I have completed high school, college, and graduate school. I got married. I have moved to Elon, Boone, back home, and into my new home with my husband.

And now I teach. I teach 7th graders. I teach kids who were between 1 and 3 when 9/11 happened. It's hard for me to think that these students in my classroom were too young to remember the events of that day. It doesn't feel like it's been 10 years.

 

9-11-01...will never forget...