9/11

Today is Tuesday, September 11. It’s seventeen years ago, also on a Tuesday, that the 9/11 terrorist attacks happened. I, like most people, know exactly where I was when I heard the news.

The terrorist attacks happened at around 9AM New York time. This corresponds to 3PM my time. I was in my room at my parents’ house processing the events of the day. Earlier that afternoon, I had been filmed with a hidden camera while riding in a taxi home from school. There at the time was this reality show in which a taxi driver talked to random but thought-to-be-interesting passengers. I, being blind and attending regular school, was definitely thought of as interesting. I didn’t think so, or at least, I wasn’t as eager to show off myself as I am now, so I didn’t consent to the recording being shown on television. I till this day, as open as i may be on my blogs, never consider putting up a video recording of myself.

I had just finished writing my diary entry for the day when on the radio I heard the breaking news of an airplane having crashed into one of the Twin Towers. Then at around 3:30PM, my father called me and my sister downstairs: “New York burning!” It didn’t fully register with me, though I did devote a full diary entry to it in the evening. I was at the time more fascinated than horrified. In fact, if I remember correctly, I was mostly excited about the downward spiral of the exchange index the following Monday. Yeah, I never quite got economics.

I never fully understood at the time how 9/11 would change the world. In fact, in early 2002, I drafted a story, set in 2016, about an Afghan and an American girl, both born shortly after 9/11, becoming penpals. I imagined that the “second generatin”, as I called them, would only still suffer generational trauma. Now I am not at all politically informed, but it doesn’t surprise me at all if the current terrorist groups in Syria are a direct result of the Bush administration overreacting to 9/11. And remember, Afghanistan will most likely not be the free nation I dreamed of in my story draft anytime soon.