Tuesday, September 11, 2012

This Day, Eleven Years Ago

Jeez, y'all. I am REALLY sorry about my failure to acknowledge---or really even remember---the attacks of the 9/11 attacks on Washington, D.C. and New York City (and somewhat somewhere in Pennsylvania). Every year I'm supposed to write a short story, a poem, and post lyrics to a song and change my template. Thanks to stupid high school and the terrorist attacks taking place during the school year--- not that they should have taken place at all, I couldn't do all that this year.

So let's take a moment to remember the lives lost on that day of September 11th, 2001.

A sophomore I sit next to in Chinese I asked me (most of us in that class are freshmen) if any of us even remembered the events of that day. Most of the kids did--- they were at preschool and were happy because they were let out early for a reason they did not yet understand, and one kid was even stuck in India.

It makes me think. One of the kids that has clear memory of that day is younger than I am. So it makes me wonder, how come I don't remember ANYTHING about that day?

Maybe it's because I don't really remember anything clearly before 2002. Or because I lived in Utah and nothing happens there. But the Base my family was stationed at was a really major base, so that doesn't make the most sense. Maybe because my mom says I was still asleep when the attacks happened and taking a nap for the majority of the day. Or because my mom didn't really watch the news that day (and my dad, well, he was working into the night that day). Or because it didn't affect me personally.

Or did it?

There is someone I knew of, someone. I remember my dad talking about him. I don't remember if his name was on the Vietnam Wall or some kind of 9/11 memorial. But does that affect ME?

Not really. That affects my dad, not me.

And it's funny, I have a killer memory. I can remember things said up to nine years ago, and you wouldn't even remember anything about that day. It's the little things, too. Looking out at the Layton (somewhat near Salt Lake City) sunset at age three, making foil Olympic torches for the Salt Lake Olympics when they were held about thirty minutes from my house, when the movers were putting my then-bunk bed into my room when I moved to Ohio in 2003, asking for a M&M when I met my first Ohio friend. I remember all this, but how could I not remember something as major as that?

I'll never know why. What if something really did happen that day that I'm simply choosing not to remember? What if I've remembered all along but I'm just not paying attention? What it's something that I have yet to truly understand?

I think that's it. The third one. It seems like with every image, every video, every story. I'm learning something more and more about that event and it's leading up to something I've forgotten...

But what have I forgotten? They said that 9.11.01 will never be forgotten, but for me, it already has been...

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