11 years later

Eleven years later it's clear to me: 9/11/01 was the line in the sand between my childhood and adulthood, the end of innocence. I had moved to NYC for college exactly two weeks prior and had already met many of the Barnard friends who would take me through the next decade and beyond. It was just two months before I'd reconnect with Jake (now my husband) in the city of our dreams. It was the first time I'd lived anywhere besides the suburban New Jersey house I grew up in.

As a child I would lie awake in bed worrying about nuclear war, AIDS, destruction of the rainforests and ozone layer.... but thankfully nothing really bad seemed to happen in my insular little world until I realized on 9/11 that evil was real. And I don't mean black and white Good vs. Evil personifications because I think it's much more complicated than that. But I learned that people could commit horrific crimes against humanity while steadfastly believing they are doing the "right" thing. I'm really lucky that I didn't experience anything so personally terrifying while I was a child. 

In Jewish tradition, a glass is broken at the end of the wedding ceremony. One interpretation is that it signifies "forever" because the glass has been permanently changed and cannot be put back together. I loved doing this at my and Jake's wedding in 2005 because I felt we were changed forever, embarking on a joyful journey that only moved forward, no going back.

For me, it's also a relevant metaphor for tragic events of great magnitude. I felt that my city, my generation were able to clean up the glass, move forward, choose love and compassion over ignorance and hate. But the glass can never be put back together, and we can never regain what was lost.

"The world only spins forward" (Tony Kushner)
"You can't go home again" (Thomas Wolfe) 
Both of these statements ring true to me as I reflect on how it felt to grow up in an instant. 

Today I want to be the child innocent enough to see the good in everyone and everything, and also the adult wise enough to know that life is short and that it's our duty to leave the world better and more beautiful than we found it. I want to be the person who never, ever forgets.