I remember exactly where I was on 9/11.

It wasn’t anywhere near New York. I was a 17 year old in England, in my A-Level Physics class. Someone in the class with a then-uncommon mobile phone received a text about it, and there was a light air of “something is happening”. It wasn’t too big a deal, though. School finished as normal, and I walked home rather than take the bus. The schedule was such, the bus often late enough, and the bus route less-direct enough, that I could almost always walk 2.5 miles home and beat the bus there. It was before such a thing as podcasts or streaming was possible, so I listened to music I had copied onto a minidisc as I walked. I got home, and was interested enough in the rumors that I turned on the news, and that’s when I first saw the famous imagery, around 11am New York time.

I remember how 9/11 made me feel.

It was shocking, but it mostly affected me for a personal reason. A girl I’d been talking to on IRC had confessed a romantic interest in me the previous day, and she lived in America. Attacks on the country she lived in made me anxious, intellectual knowledge that America is vast and she was nowhere near it aside, and that did help to crystalize my decision about how to respond. I replied to her, and we started dating long-distance. It was quite insufferable for the other regulars of that IRC channel, I’m sure. We’re still married.

I remember what happened next.

I moved to America not long after that, the aforementioned long-distance relationship didn’t stay that way for too long. I was broke, working entry level jobs, and going to community college during the leadup to the Iraq war. Unlike a great many people who now say you should trust their judgement, I have excellent documentation on LiveJournal of not having been taken in by that entire affair. It was depressing to watch a country fall for the most obvious bullshit, redirected away from something at least adjacent to retribution towards a neocon fever dream. Yet, in retrospect, somehow the era of Freedom Fries was more idealistic than today.

I remember what mattered.

I had no personal involvement, I didn’t rush into the smoke and rubble, I didn’t know anyone who was hurt, I didn’t go to war. There’s no glory in this story for me, no flag to drape over myself, no valor to steal. But I remember innocent people were hurt, lives were changed around the world, and a nation lashed out then took years to find itself again.

My daughter is now the age I was on 9/11. What will she have to remember?