Show and Tell Tuesday: 9/11

Linking-up with Andrea again for Show and Tell Tuesday.  Today's topic is where were you on 9/11.

This is somewhat of a bizarre topic for me since I work at the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, but I understand the curiosity and the need to share.  Whenever I tell people where I work they immediately launch into their "On 9/11 I was..."  Always.  It's a moment in time that bonds everyone who has a memory of it. 

I was a freshman in high school on 9/11, probably my third week into the school year.  I remember hearing about the events on the car radio on the way to school.  I had never been to New York City, did not know what the World Trade Center was, and I did not really understand what had happened and what it meant.  My older sister said something like, “this changes everything” and I remember thinking, “what’s the big deal?”  

In school that day, the television was on in the library, a girl in my English class was crying because her dad was in New York (he was fine).  My Spanish teacher refused to acknowledge what had happened and carried on with the lesson.  My orchestra teacher tried to debrief and help us work through it.  I was confused and worried something was wrong with me because I wasn't emotional about it.  I didn't understand what it meant. 

Looking back on it now I was definitely naive.  My perspective of the world was so much smaller and I was living in a bubble.  I felt the same way in 6th grade after the Columbine shootings.  It didn't touch me so therefore I couldn't feel it.  Everything really did change and remembering what life was like before that moment seems so far away. 

Of course now my perspective on 9/11 is completely different.  I live in New York.  My office overlooks the site where thousands of people died.  I have cataloged thousands of pictures of the attack over the past four year.  I can usually look at any image of Ground Zero from any perspective and tell you what used to be there based on the appearance of the rubble.  I know hundreds of stories of people who survived and I've handled hundreds of objects that belonged to people who died or those who worked on the site.  I've looked at the faces of the people who died, some were just my age, at the same stage in life, living and working in the same area, using the same subways, and looking out the office window at the same sky.  It's altogether eerie and humbling.

There are aspects of my job that I dislike (who doesn't have that?) but working at the 9/11 Museum has given me a greater appreciation for my life and the lives of those around me.  Sometimes I am uncomfortably aware of how quickly it can all be taken away and how close tragedy is at every moment.  Being so near to the content of  9/11 on a daily basis has taught me about the power of evil but more importantly about the power of good.  Witnessing the courage of the human spirit to carry-on, of a country coming together to support one another, and the promise to never forget.