Everything Can Change...

"In a New York minute/ Everything can change/ In a New York minute." - Don Henley

These last ten years have gone by in the blink of an eye and have lasted a lifetime. As so many of us have done today, I spent some time thinking about how our country, our world, has changed in this last decade. How did your views of humanity change? What about your opinions of our government? War? Life in general? My opinions have no relevance today, so I'll simply tell you what I've been reflecting on as our nation remembers the day everything changed in a New York minute.

I woke up this morning thinking about sleeping in exactly ten years ago. I never sleep in - ever - but that day I did. As I was getting out of bed, my sister ran upstairs and told me that a plane had just crashed into the World Trade Center in New York. My first thought was that there must have been some terrible mechanical problem. Or maybe the pilot had a heart attack. Terrorism didn't even enter my mind. And I was not a naive, innocent eighteen-year-old that viewed the world through rose colored glasses. That kind of thing just didn't happen here, not really. But it did. I walked down the stairs and into my family room just in time to see the second plane crash on TV, and a wave of confusion, fear, and sadness swept over me. Then reports started coming in that it was a terrorist attack.

Just when I was wrapping my head around the fact that the Twin Towers were obliterated, thousands of lives were in danger, and New York would never be the same, a plane crashed into the Pentagon. Then Flight 93 went down in Pennsylvania. I had never felt so out of control. What would happen next? I remember that the military bases basically went on lockdown and people in my part of the country panicked. I live less than 20 miles away from the biggest base in the country, and it seemed like that would be the next logical target. It was eery, terrifying, and surreal, and I hope none of us ever have to experience those feelings again.

But what about all of the people who live with the effects of the attacks every day? The families and friends of the 2,819 people lost on September 11, 2001. The residents and employees in New York that see the altered skyline and ground zero every day as constant reminders of what happened, how life was, and how life will never be the same. The survivors who have lived with life-changing medical and psychological problems for the past ten years. The children who will never know their parents because they were taken from this world too soon. For most of us, 9/11 is something that creeps into our minds every so often and usually flits out just as quickly, but so many others are not that fortunate. So on this day, please take a minute to think about not only the lives lost that day, but the lives of the people still here that have been permanently altered. My thoughts and prayers are with you all.