Eight Years

I woke up this morning with the desire to write about where I was eight years ago today. It was a historic day and as much as we all want to forget, I think it's necessary that we remember.

I was in eighth grade at ACT Academy. They sort of let us run wild in that school (I miss it so much!)... so my best friend Rachel and I were down in the Art Lab all by ourselves (lol) on the lowest level of the school, for a good hour probably. When we decide that maybe we should return to wherever we were supposed to be, we walk up the stairs to nobody in the hallways. Everyone was in their rooms and quiet, and nobody but those who attended ACT Academy knows what that means. There was always somebody studying, laying down on the hallway floor, there was always someone sitting on top of the lockers sketching. I vividly remember us getting to the top of the stairs and stopping cold. We probably made a joke about how it felt like a horror movie, but we ran to one of our favorite teachers Ms. Holman's room. Hers was the biggest room in the middle school section of the K-12 school. We ran to the doorway and was met with everyone we knew sitting in the floor looking shocked, listening to something on the radio. Being the loud teenagers we were, one of us yelled "What happened?!" and were immediately shushed. We walked up to the teacher closest to the door, I forget who it was, and he said "The World Trade Center was bombed or something." What does that mean to a 12 year old? And honestly, I didn't know which one the WTC was, I thought it was "the big one in Chicago." I was gently corrected by Ms. Holman who explained, "No, sweetie, there are two of them and they're in New York City," and I immediately knew, as I had a poster of the New York skyline in my room. I didn't understand how big the building was or how many people occupied them. I didn't get worried until I heard about the Pentagon and how the White House was being evacuated.

We sat there for a good 20 minutes before we were forced to switch classes. But of course, the day didn't go on as normal. We were told with MUCH force that if we spoke a single word about it in the hallway we would be suspended for the rest of the day and then the next. The teachers were afraid of the little children hearing and immediately thinking they were coming for us too. I remember a teacher turning on the radio in our room and going into the elementary school section so some of those teachers could come and hear at least a bit of what was happening. The high school kids had TV's in their room, but the windows were closed (which also never happened) and no one was allowed in there without permission from the principal. At ACT we were each issued laptops, a couple of us ran to our computers and I was the only one able to log into cnn.com since there was obviously a lot of traffic. Everyone crowded around me, as we read that it was a plane and that it was almost positively intentional. They described how the plane was in no way in a nose dive or anything and how clear the sky was.

Another teacher gave us each his phone to call our mommies, lol. I felt like a baby, but I knew it would bring me comfort, and most of all, I wanted to go home. She didn't answer her phone. She would later explain that she stole my little TV from home and took it to work to broadcast in the conference room. She explained how on her way home she had to pull over and vomit while the radio newscasters described the people jumping from the skyscraper's top floors.

For our last class of the day, Mr. Tustin gathered the middle school kids to explain what had just happened to our country. He gently explained what a terrorist was, and how they just hate for no reason that we could understand. He explained how the plane nosedove into the Pentagon and how and why the buildings collapsed in the streets of New York City. My mom picked me up soon after and I said, "So we're going to war..." She said, "No honey, that won't happen." (.....)

My grandma wanted me to come to her house so she could feed me cookies and shelter me from EVERY TV station except the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon. I watched MTV of course, like any good teenager, but even they broadcast the news. I saw the planes slice the buildings like butter and watched as they collapsed like something out of Armageddon. I remember falling asleep with the TV on, and waking up the next morning to "One Love" by Bob Marley, then "One" by U2.