I Remember

9/11.
This day eleven years ago I was sleeping in my bed, skipping my first class of the day because it was an 8 am class and I had stayed up in the wee hours of the morning socializing (sorry, mom).  My roommate, Kristin woke me up by coming into our room and saying, "dude, turn on the tv.  Someone flew into the World Trade Center".  Sleepy shock came over me.  By that time, it was pretty apparent that it wasn't an accident.

Disbelief set in as I watched horrifying news reports and learned of Flights 77 and 93, respectively.  To someone from my generation, like me, who basically believed that our nation was an invincible superpower, the realization that we were, in fact, vulnerable quickly emerged.

It was a sad day, an angry day, and in weeks that followed pride soon set in at the way a country that was divided, banded together.  Pain has a pretty powerful way of uniting people who would not normally come together.  Love surely is stronger, but I think, that pain unites people with a common bond that is not easily broken.  You suddenly become a member of a pain club.  It was definitely pain that brought Americans together after 9/11.  In the after affects, I think that we all learned that we need each other to make this place great, that together we can overcome any obstacle, that together we can rebuild.  Together we can hope, dream, mourn, thrive, succeed.  The biggest lesson, I learned from 9/11 is that no matter how polarized we are, we need each other.  Hugging my family extra tight today.

God Bless The U.S.A.