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8 years ago today

Eight years ago today I was a junior at Skyline High School in Sammamish, WA. At roughly 6 A.M. I got out of bed, jumped in the shower and went downstairs to grab a quick breakfast before my ride came and picked me up for school. At roughly 6:20 A.M. my mother and I, who normally hung out in complete silence during the morning ritual that was my schooling, received a call from our father who had left early that morning to fly down to California. He was coming back home, all the flights had been cancelled and he advised us to turn on the television.

We did.

At school I got in an argument with my history teacher who refused to turn on the TV. She argued we needed to study history... the class argued that this was history. My friend made a passing comment about World War III... I got upset by how non-chalantly he said it... even though now I know that he was as frightened as I was. Another friend of mine left school early. He had just gotten a girlfriend, and I was convinced he left just so he could go make out with his girlfriend... and for some reason I got more angry at that than I did at the attacks. I was young, and this whole thing was beyond anything I could comprehend.

Now as I work in the Financial District, blocks away from where it occured, I wish I could have seen the buildings. I've often sat and looked at the construction site. I've listened to people's reactions to the event who lost loved ones, or ran from their office. I've laughed at jokes the Onion has published about it. I still have very mixed reactions to this huge event.

But I know that it has changed history... and I now am closer to understanding the amount of people it affected, and the scale of the catastrophe. But I'm nowhere near close enough.

Today, the year of the blog will honor the day by posting three posts of silence.

Thank you. And tomorrow I will go back to dick jokes.