Writing a September 11th post feels like a bad idea, because I don’t want it to seem like I’m trying to claim a piece of the tragedy. Everyone talks about where they were, and we all shake our heads and say “it was so terrible.” It was terrible, but I’m sure we don’t know the half of it. Our perception of 9/11 is always veiled by what CNN didn’t show, or what the reporter on the scene decided to say. The tragedy really belongs to the people who watched it unfold, to the families of the victims, and not me.

I guess I want to write this down because every year I forget little pieces of that day. Some moments of it are still very sharp, but others have been lost to the last eight years. I want to record what’s left, so if someone asks in twenty years what it was like for me, I’ll know.

Being a sophomore in September in Florida is sweaty and boring, so I’m sure I was feeling very sorry for myself. I was sitting on our high school track, ignoring my gym teacher’s command to stretch my legs, when I overheard a boy say that New York City had been bombed. I remember thinking “he’s lying. Does he mean an atomic bomb? And who would want to bomb us, we don’t have any enemies anymore, right? Is my uncle (who lives in the financial district, I think) okay? What about my Grandma in Irvington? I guess that depends on the size of the bomb. Whatever, that fucking kid is probably just lying. He says he heard it from the ag(riculture) teacher. The ag teacher is a stupid hick. That’s such a fucked up thing to joke about. I’m moving to New York as soon as I graduate high school, and there’s no way it’s been bombed.”

The gym teacher told us to stop talking and jog a mile. I stood up, and brushed the concrete off of my palms. I think I asked, “will they make an announcement? If something really did happen?” This is where details are lost. I know another gym teacher came running over, and their walkie talkies were buzzing with voices. I felt vaguely sick, and started to wonder if something could be going on.

I remember walking to my next class, and hearing it was just a plane hitting one of the World Trade Center buildings. I thought about visiting the Empire State Building when I was younger, and how my grandpa said a plane had hit it once, but it didn’t fall. I felt reassured; it was just an accident.

The next memory is sitting at a desk, watching the first building fall. Ms. Kaney, my English teacher, told us to take out a piece of paper and write down what we were thinking. She said this would change our lives forever, and that we’d want to remember it when we were older. She was right. I wonder if my parents still have that piece of paper somewhere.

I was thinking about eating folded slices of pepperoni pizza at the feet of the World Trade Center, grease running down my chin as I stared up at their 100+ floors. I remembered there being a mall underneath the World Trade Center where I’d gone shopping with my Grandpa, and I wondered if it was still there. They said the Pentagon had been hit too. Were other planes were coming? Where would they be going?

I borrowed my Spanish teacher’s cell phone, and called my Mom. She was crying, but she’d talked to Uncle Lance, and he was okay. I think I asked, “are we at war now?” “I don’t know, honey. But you come straight home after school.”

And I’m sure I did, though all other memories of that day are lost for me now.