The 9/11 post

   I think we can all say that we remember where we were on 9/11 , if you are old enough to remember...
I don't remember anything else during the school day when we found out except my teacher having us gather around her on our little rug in the class room . She delicately explained to us that something had happened not really being completely clear because 3rd graders wouldn't comprehend the gravity of something like this . I took the paper from her that she handed out and gave it to my mom when she picked me up that day , I think it offered grief counselling or something like that. But the most vivid memory I have of that day 10 years ago was coming home and turning on the tv , at the time we had about 8 channels and i was confused , the same thing was on every channel...and right in front of my eyes was a live feed of the twin towers , this carnage .The camera  zooms in on a man standing on the ledge of a window , he's covered in ash from the plane tearing through the tower. Then a woman shows up next to him they grab each other's hands and jump out of the building...
    Now I know that 9/11 didn't just affect American's there were people from all over the world in the plane and in the buildings they struck. In fact there was one Belgian. Yet , 9/11 is especially different for American's because until then , we never knew what it was like to be attacked on our own soil. Europeans dealt with it during WWI and II . They knew what it was like. But ten years ago today the "#1world power" was left vulnerable we were unstoppable , untouchable...
   Back home right now everyone is cleaning up from the hurricane and bombardment of terrible weather. Nothing like this has ever really happened to upstate new york . People have died, lost houses, belongings , roads have been completely washed out leaving remote villages cut off from aide. I was skyping with my dad today and he was talking about how they had to evacuate when Irene hit and how there was so much water in the basement that the furnace is ruined. And yet he said that at least he wasn't a family member of a 9/11 victim or one of many that went down in a plane or building. Everything is relative , I was feeling sorry for myself for trying to learn Spanish in French the other day and then you stop to thing of what could have happened to you and you immediately want to wipe any notion of self wallowing from your mind immediately.             


  I know this really doesn't have anything to do with Belgium but i figured i'd say something because it is the 10 year anniversary and as a 3rd grader back then I don't think I would have even though that 10 years from then I'd be living in Europe . It's very weird though , because here the news is completely focused on 9/11 reports but watching it here make me feel like an outsider to the us. Someone that is just looking in on what happened ten years ago today .