9/11/2001
In all honesty, I don't remember much about the day outside of all the adults around me being stuck on either the TV or radio to find out what the hell was going on. I was only eleven, after all, and I didn't quite believe that it had actually happened. I mean, it obviously did, but seeing it on the early morning news* was one of the most surreal moments of my life**, especially since I has barely awake and caught it on the way out to the car. From there, actually, my memories get foggy since I have a tendency to block some things out.
One of the few things I do remember clearly, however, is thinking What if it happens here? I know the marine base*** is the closest possible thing to important out here. throughout most of the day. Of course, that sort of thinking ended up being rather silly, but I actually thought that it could happen for a while after that since both the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were very much attacked and other large cities were in panic mode.
Another is of my sixth grade teacher (who happens to be one of my favorite teachers ever) having let the class do whatever quiet thing we liked while he sat there shocked and listened to, I think, NPR to get a broader scope of what was happening. My classmates and I, however, took to whispered gossiping and coming up with "possible" scenarios for the reasons behind it for the rest of the day. I don't even remember what we came up with, just that we were all very shocked and bowled over that something like that could even still happen. We may have only been eleven, but we all knew that things had changed in a very big way.
And, well, we needn't go into those changes now, right?
*My parents were together still and working full time, so Dad had woken us up to go to our daycare provider's house before catching the bus to school, like usual.
**I've had many, see: my seizure disorder and arachnoid cyst.
***Only the largest, in terms of acres of land, US Marine base on the continent and only two towns over. And since all this started it's been used as desert training for I-don't-know-how-many soldiers.