This morning, I woke up without knowing the date. It's the first time in a decade that I didn't automatically know, that I didn't automatically imbue this day with significance.
I'm writing this from the fifth floor Senate House Library in London, right near the Shakespeare section. I should be working on my Masters thesis, but, alas, I'm not. I should be writing my MA dissertation, but instead I'm thinking about how eleven years ago, I was in a very different library. I was writing a very different paper. Tonight, I'm meant to go out to dinner with extended family and then maybe see a friend. Eleven years ago tonight, I was meant to start my college search in earnest. I was meant to be in a hotel ballroom that ceased to exist that day.
The world wasn't a safe place before the towers fell, I just didn't know it. The world still isn't a safe place, I just don't care. No. That's not accurate. I care a great deal. The world still isn't a safe place, I'm just not willing to cower in fear.
Today might be a hard day for me. I might not write the 2,000 words I really do need to have by midnight. I need to give myself a break. It's okay to mourn- for the lives lost, for the sense of safety my country lost, for the innocence I lost- on that morning eleven years ago. But I must get through it, complete the work at hand, and keep moving forwards.
I'm writing this from the fifth floor Senate House Library in London, right near the Shakespeare section. I should be working on my Masters thesis, but, alas, I'm not. I should be writing my MA dissertation, but instead I'm thinking about how eleven years ago, I was in a very different library. I was writing a very different paper. Tonight, I'm meant to go out to dinner with extended family and then maybe see a friend. Eleven years ago tonight, I was meant to start my college search in earnest. I was meant to be in a hotel ballroom that ceased to exist that day.
The world wasn't a safe place before the towers fell, I just didn't know it. The world still isn't a safe place, I just don't care. No. That's not accurate. I care a great deal. The world still isn't a safe place, I'm just not willing to cower in fear.
Today might be a hard day for me. I might not write the 2,000 words I really do need to have by midnight. I need to give myself a break. It's okay to mourn- for the lives lost, for the sense of safety my country lost, for the innocence I lost- on that morning eleven years ago. But I must get through it, complete the work at hand, and keep moving forwards.
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