This Post is for 9/11

I watched the 9/11 date encroaching. The headlines weren't exactly discrete but I will admit that I avoided facing it. And yet it came. And with it came the feelings I remember as the 12-year-old kid standing in front of a hotel TV in Colorado Springs CO exactly 10 years ago. That was the day I really put my finger on what terrorism was/is. That was the day I first learned of Osama bin Ladan. That was the day I learned when the Cold War ended, and what the Cold War was. That was the day I wondered how much life of my life would change.

In some ways, life didn't change. We went back home to Nairobi and kept on homeschooling. But we stopped going to crowded places. Flying became the horrific experience it is today. We listened to how people hated George Bush on both spectrums. We discovered being American came with baggage and troublesome and started identifying ourselves as "from home," or from "Nairobi" (I still tell people I'm from Zimbabwe, because I did come from there...four years ago when I lived there).

I read a headline recently calling my generation, "the generation that knew only war." It's true there has been a lot of war since 2001. People say my generation doesn't understand how serious 9/11 was because we were to young. People say my generation doesn't know what peace is. I don't think I'll ever forget the feelings of loss, hopeless, confusion, fear, horror and shock that I remember so clearly. I grew up because of 9/11. I realized the importance of current events, politics, economics, and social awareness which came to define me. 9/11 marked my transition into adolescence which coincided nicely with the wars which coincided nicely with acne and overall awkward confusion of the teenage years. 9/11 was part of my life. It's still part of my life. I remember how the world came to be what it is now and this is the world that's been given to me and where I aspire to leave a small lasting positive impact. The 9/11 era I belong to isn't black and white. There aren't good guys and bad guys. Instead, things are less-defined, less predicable, less "American."

Optimistic people say that you can't control what happens to you but you can control your response. I might have said that too...in some of my previous posts. But sometimes you wish life hadn't screwed you quite so badly. I wish it hadn't happened. But it did. And you can only be sad and pray for healing for yourself and the world around you.