I am unafraid.
A few days after I turned sixteen, a handful of men hijacked some airplanes and flew them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
I was living in Turkey at the time, and I watched everything unfold on TV, switching between channels in Turkish and German and French and Spanish until I found a channel I could understand, though even in English I still couldn't really comprehend what was going on. It looked like it had been a gorgeous day in New York - it had certainly been, up until that point, a perfect day in Istanbul. I had wandered around a market with my host family, bought a kilo of fresh cherries and eaten them all in the back of a tiny Fiat, and felt so happy with my life. And then one of my hosts turned to me and said she'd heard something had happened.
The way I live my life has been shaped, like many people my age, by the response I had to that moment, seeing the same image on every screen and feeling fear and anger and an overwhelming, bone-shaking sadness. The decisions I made that day have not wavered, not through the worst moments of my life, not through the loss of my only parent to cancer, not through the lesser disappointments that the world inevitably deals to every person as they grow up.
I promised myself I would not shift my goals because of the fear that something might happen to me. I promised that I would react to evil with an open heart and a view to help those who can't do what I can do. Control what you can, accept that some things are beyond you, and attempt to leave the world and the people in it better for your being there - this is the lesson I took from the horror of that day.
Yesterday was awful, and even if it didn't personally affect me, it didn't have to. My heart hurt seeing a clear blue sky split by smoke, hearing the stories of people injured and killed on a day that was supposed to be a celebration of the things we as humans can do with our bodies and our minds. But - even if it's not on me to say it's all going to be okay, even if that's not my right as someone who just watched it on TV, I can do my part to lift a huge middle finger to whoever it was that did this.
I am not afraid. I'm not going to stop living the life I want to live or achieving the things I want to achieve because of someone who doesn't get what humanity is really about. We work for a goal, whether it's running a marathon or making a family or learning something new or solving a problem, and we leave the world a better place than if we'd never been there.
That's what I'm about. I'm not afraid, and I'm not going to be. And it's a beautiful day in Louisiana. I'm sitting on my back porch, watching my dogs play, listening to my boyfriend strum on his guitar, drinking a cold beer. I'm going to enjoy this, and I'm going to wake up tomorrow and be better than I was today.
I wish the same for those who are suffering from grief or pain as a result of what happened in Boston. And I wish the same for you.
I was living in Turkey at the time, and I watched everything unfold on TV, switching between channels in Turkish and German and French and Spanish until I found a channel I could understand, though even in English I still couldn't really comprehend what was going on. It looked like it had been a gorgeous day in New York - it had certainly been, up until that point, a perfect day in Istanbul. I had wandered around a market with my host family, bought a kilo of fresh cherries and eaten them all in the back of a tiny Fiat, and felt so happy with my life. And then one of my hosts turned to me and said she'd heard something had happened.
The way I live my life has been shaped, like many people my age, by the response I had to that moment, seeing the same image on every screen and feeling fear and anger and an overwhelming, bone-shaking sadness. The decisions I made that day have not wavered, not through the worst moments of my life, not through the loss of my only parent to cancer, not through the lesser disappointments that the world inevitably deals to every person as they grow up.
I promised myself I would not shift my goals because of the fear that something might happen to me. I promised that I would react to evil with an open heart and a view to help those who can't do what I can do. Control what you can, accept that some things are beyond you, and attempt to leave the world and the people in it better for your being there - this is the lesson I took from the horror of that day.
Yesterday was awful, and even if it didn't personally affect me, it didn't have to. My heart hurt seeing a clear blue sky split by smoke, hearing the stories of people injured and killed on a day that was supposed to be a celebration of the things we as humans can do with our bodies and our minds. But - even if it's not on me to say it's all going to be okay, even if that's not my right as someone who just watched it on TV, I can do my part to lift a huge middle finger to whoever it was that did this.
I am not afraid. I'm not going to stop living the life I want to live or achieving the things I want to achieve because of someone who doesn't get what humanity is really about. We work for a goal, whether it's running a marathon or making a family or learning something new or solving a problem, and we leave the world a better place than if we'd never been there.
That's what I'm about. I'm not afraid, and I'm not going to be. And it's a beautiful day in Louisiana. I'm sitting on my back porch, watching my dogs play, listening to my boyfriend strum on his guitar, drinking a cold beer. I'm going to enjoy this, and I'm going to wake up tomorrow and be better than I was today.
I wish the same for those who are suffering from grief or pain as a result of what happened in Boston. And I wish the same for you.