Proud to be a Believer

"You're 21 right?" My boss yelled to me.

"Yes," I called back. I didn't know why he was asking me. Were we going to take a beer break or something?

"So you were 13 when September 11th happened?"

"Umm..." I said processing the question and the math, "yes."

There was a pause.

"I was in 8th grade," I called from my desk.

"And your younger sister? She was in 5th grade?" He asked.

I thought again. "I think fourth." Math fail. She was definitely in 5th.

"That's weird. People like her don't really know a pre-9/11 world."

I leaned back in my chair. And I thought.

I was in my living room.

My backpack was on. I had my student I.D. pocketed inside it, so the dean we called Napoleon wouldn't make me do pushups by the cafeteria.

My mom called. She was already at work.

"Turn on the TV," she told my dad.

I looked at him confused as he grabbed the remote.

I didn't know what was happening.

"What is that?" I asked, watching the news.

My dad was quiet.

And I waited.

Then again, "What's going on?"

"A plane is crashing into the World Trade Center in New York."

"Why? What happened?" I asked.

I don't remember his answer.

Not in that moment, and not until yesterday when my boss asked me how old I was, did I ever think my world was really different because of September 11.

I mean, in 8th grade standing in front of a television filled with gray smoke and crying people, I knew something big had happened. I knew something dramatic and life changing had just occurred.

I just didn't really think it was life changing for me.

I went to school that morning with hundreds of other 8th graders who had watched the news, too.

We stood at various places on campus talking about what happened. Talking about what it meant. Talking about planes crashing into buildings in America. In America.

I speculated as seriously as my other 13-year-old peers.

I heard phrases like "attack on America" and buzz words like "terrorism", and I stored them away for the next conversation I would have about September 11.

I have never written about September 11, 2001 before.

Maybe because I didn't want to fill a page with buzz words taken from 8th graders.

Maybe because for a long time I thought the only real way that day 8 years back had changed my life was by making me a little afraid to fly.

But I think there's more to it.

My friend came up to me. I was standing in front of the music room, not too far from the gum tree.

"Those boys are saying we're going to declare war," she said.

I shrugged my shoulders.

"But you can't just declare war because someone crashes a plane," she said. "Right?"

I had already learned about World War I and World War II. That was 7th grade material.

I thought about bomb shelters. My family didn't even have a basement. I wondered if we could build one--a bomb shelter that is.

I thought about crawling under my desk if a bomb hit at school. I thought about green smoke. I thought about gun shots and machine guns. I thought about being afraid every day. I thought about dying.

I hoped that wasn't what all this meant.

I agreed with my friend as we stood outside our 8th grade classrooms. "Probably not."

We were wrong.

War was declared with much less discussion than the day the planes crashed.

The day of September 11, class curriculum was replaced by breaking news. Science teachers were replaces by CNN news anchors.

When we declared war, class went on as per usual.

The war, it was far away, and as far as I could tell, there wouldn't be any need to hide under any desks.

By the time we had our first bomb drill a few months later, we were joking about it.

They rang a bell and sent us all out to the football field.

I said they might as well have dressed us up in red and circled us up in the shape of a target.

We all laughed.

We weren't afraid of bombs.

We were afraid of airports.

Now I am writing about September 11.

Because of something my boss said.

Because post 9/11 is different than pre 9/11.

And not just because you have to take your shoes off in the airport.

I think it's true, not just a cliché, when people say they remember exactly where they were September 11th.

But I hope, in the end, we remember more than living rooms and work cubicles and passenger seats.

I hope we remember that America, without freedom and faith, is just another piece of land.

But if we can really believe in clichés from eighth grade government class, like equality and liberty, like hope and brotherhood, then we have something great.

I hope we remember freedom isn't free,

but some things are worth paying for.