Remembering

Today (I guess technically it was yesterday) was a day of remembering. Something, I'm sorry to say, I didn't remember until I was on facebook. With status updates of "Never Forget" and "Always remember" I realized that it was in fact September 11th. I toyed with the idea of posting a status update myself that would prove how patriotic I was and how much I cared, or how much I wanted people to think I cared. But, my fingers just hovered over the keyboard and I closed my computer, and forgot about it.

It wasn't until later in the day when, yet again, I was on my computer and I saw the old pictures. The ones that were taken 9 years ago and I realized that I wasn't forgetting what day it was, I was pushing out of my mind. I didn't want to remember September 11th, 2001. I didn't want to remember the one event in my life where I can say "I know what I was doing when that happened." I didn't want to remember the feeling I had watching the TV screen at school and seeing on live television the second plane crash into the other trade tower. The moment when it went from freak accident to terror attack. I didn't want to remember how chaotic and blurry the rest of the day was. How it felt like a weird montage from a dramatic TV show, with blurred edges and time flying. Parents rushing into school and pulling their kids out. Teachers and students glued to their TV sets. Kids in the hallways saying "My Dad works in the Pentagon, I can't get a hold of him." Getting home and watching the same footage over and over and over until I had each clip branded into my memory. Feeling like I wanted to escape and retreating to my room at 5pm and falling asleep for 15hours.

No, I didn't want to remember.

But, along the same lines as those horrible memories, the ones I tried but couldn't actually forget, there were incredible memories. Waking up after my semi-hibernation, proud to be an American. Proud that there were men and women willing to run up burning buildings knowing they probably wouldn't come out alive. Proud to honor heroes in a plane who sacrificed themselves in the fields of Pennsylvania to save innocent people. I was proud to hold a candle outside my house the next day to honor those to had fought and those who had fallen. It felt amazing to know that all the biases that plagued day to day living, the petty crap that people fought about in America all crumbled away as we stood together. Americans willing to fight, once again, for their freedom, their safety, their people.

Yes, of course, I remember. I will always remember. It might not be on the forefront of my mind. I might not always want to rehash the bad to remember the good. But, I will always remember. I am an American, and proud to be so.