BAD Blogger!

I disappeared. I know it's lame, but as soon as school started again, any desire I had to write (or really, THINK) anything more than absolutely necessary kind of flew out the window. Woops. Such is the life of a grad student, I suppose.

I turned on the television yesterday morning to watch a bit of 9/11 anniversary coverage, and was a little bit disturbed to find that MSNBC was playing their exact coverage from that morning, starting at 7:45a.m. I knew that watching this couldn't really bring about anything productive, but I found myself riveted and moved to tears again as I re

lived the fear and shock that we all experienced that day. If I felt that way, I can't even begin to fathom what it is like for New Yorkers, let alone survivors and family members of the victims, to have to relive that all the time. Having worked on a study of survivors, and having interviewed many family members of survivors, I know that for many, the wounds haven't healed.

As I listened to the announcers speculate over who may have done it, whether other planes were being hijacked and directed to other potential targets, and whether the death toll would be 200 or 500 people (little did we know it would reach 2500 or so), I couldn't stop thinking about how strange it was to watch as people tried to figure out the details of that day that we all know now has literally changed the course of our country, history, and the world. Did 9/11 shock me as much as it did the rest of America? Of course. Am I proud to be an American? Absolutely, and having lived in a country that is oppressive to its people in unthinkable ways, I know how much I take for granted sometimes. But do I wish that, perhaps, we had responded a bit differently to this attack? That we hadn't set off a chain reaction that prompted an endless war and a lot of hate for a people (or 99% of them) that just wants peace and a chance to live life as much as we do? Probably. It's sickening to think about the lives that could have been saved both here and around the world (i.e. Iraq, etc.) if we just could have had a tiny glimpse of what was to come, or if we had had the foresight to wait and get all of the facts before we shot back with our bombs and our guns (Cranberries reference, anyone? Zombieeeee). We say God Bless America, and I'm okay with that, but why can't we say God Bless the World, too?

But sadly, that's not how life works, and we have to do the best we can with what we've got. Not really sure where I'm going with this, but I do think it was important yesterday to reflect on that day and how different the world might look today if it hadn't occurred. And of course, we have to remember the people who risked their lives and lost them, and those who have answered what has been asked of them since then...I am thankful for them, and I'm not sure if I could be that brave.