The Day My World Changed

My boyfriend just texted me asking, "Where were you when The Towers fell?"

I just sat at my table in the little cafe where I was working on my computer.

Silent.  

Remembering.

Feeling the ache in my heart.

Wishing that day had never happened.

Knowing that day changed me, the world, and everyone in it.

It was my senior year high school.  I had endured all of the ridicule and exclusion of being an outsider in that tiny East Texas town, and I finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel. I was going to graduate.  I was going to college.  I was going to be an engineer.

 I was going to make a ton of money and never come back.

That was my plan.  That was my world.  That was all I focused on.

Even though I was from the city, I excelled at working with animals and just working hard in general.  It was second nature.  I'm not sure why.  Perhaps, my country roots ran deeper than I chose to believe at the time.  Every elective class I had my senior year I filled with some sort of vocational ag class.  I even took welding.  (Yes, I was the only girl in the class.  And, yes, I felt like I had something to prove to this bunch of boys and my fairly chauvenistic ag teacher.)

That morning, that sweaty September morning, I was in the ag shop in coveralls that were too large for me, wearing a welding helmet that hurt my head, and perspiring more than I had ever perspired in my life.  I was welding a deer stand.  Unlike the rest of the class that had teamed-up, I was working by myself.  I don't remember if I had made that decision, or if it just worked-out that way, but I was all alone.  I had just finished building the ladder and was checking it to make sure everything was square when the ag teacher came out of his office.  The class was all juniors and seniors.  There was no need for him to hover over us.  We knew what we were doing, so he rarely came out of his office.  He asked us to all gather around, so we stopped what we were doing and went.  He said, "Something's going on guys.  I don't know what it is, but it's in New York, and it's a big deal.  Wrap everything up."

That was it.

That was all we were told.

So, I followed his instructions.  I put all of my stuff away, took the oversized dirty coveralls off, and waited to go to my next class.  Finally, the bell rang.  As I walked across campus to get to my senior English class, I asked a friend if he knew anything about what was going on.  He said, "Yeah, there was an accident in New York.  A plane flew into The World Trade Center.  You know, those two huge buildings you always
see?"

Yeah, I knew them.  Three short months earlier I had been on an amazing trip with some friends to New York City.  We stayed at Times Square, saw four Broadway shows, went to Ellis Island, climbed the spiral staircase to the crown of the Statue of Liberty, and stood on the veiwing deck of one of the Twin Towers.  I bought a I <3 NY t-shirt.  It was a trip of a lifetime.  I took tons of pictures, and a lot of those pictures had The Towers in them.  I felt like I could see the world from that viewing deck.  Nothing but city and sea.  It was awe inspiring.

My English teacher was old school.  She believed in challenging her seniors, and if you didn't pass her class you didn't graduate.  I loved her class.  I loved being challenged, and English was my best subject.  My teacher also had a dry, witty sense of humor that wasn't appreciated by most, but I understood it and loved it.  There was only one computer in her classroom.  As my friend and I walked into her classroom, we saw all of my classmates surrounding that computer as the image of the smoking Towers emerged slowly on the screen.  (That was back in the days of dial-up.  It took such a painfully long time for the image to download.)  The image shocked me, but I didn't really feel a sense of doom or dispair.  I still thought it was an accident, and that's what I thought for the rest of the school day.

Then I drove home.

I turned-off my truck and walked inside to find Mom sitting in the living room directly in front of the TV crying.  My mom doesn't cry.  She's like me.  There's only one set of circumstances that makes us cry: when we are pissed and can't do anything about what has pissed us off.  She looked at me with red eyes and said, "They're jumping.  They have lost all hope, and they're jumping."  Right as she said that, my eyes fixed to the TV screen and watched some small object fly out of the window of the tower that was still standing.  A few minutes later, that tower fell too.  There was nothing but a huge pile of steel and rubble with human beings, innocent Americans, dying in that heap.

Something in me broke.

A sense of vengence welled-up within me.  I had learned from the newscast that some group from Afghanistan claimed to be responsible.  I was about to turn 18.  I decided to fight.  I was going to join the Army and fight.  My plans went out the window that moment.  I stopped caring about money or being a success.  I just wanted to fight.  I wanted to fight for those who weren't able to fight for themselves. I wanted to wear a uniform with an American flag on it, carry an M-16, and fight.

A few years later, I did.

I went to Afghanistan.

And I fought.

And I came back.

And the world had changed.

Many people have forgotten what happened that day, but I will never be one of those people.

I will never forget.

Eleven years later, I still remember 9/11.