To be completely honest, the only thing September 11th makes me want to do is to completely shut off all access to other people. Turn the television off, close the laptop, and ignore Twitter. I don’t anticipate writing about 9/11 as being an elating task. I imagine I won’t want to finish writing this at all.
I will, relatively briefly, describe how I remember 9/11/2001. I was 12 and in middle school. I carried a Five Star zip binder because we weren’t allowed to carry backpacks around school. I had a very exact way that I folded notes to later be passed in hallway. I was just starting to figure out what characteristics I had to possess in order to be more like my more popular peers and less like my socially awkward friends from elementary school. I read really terrible books and spent a ridiculous amount of time on AOL Instant Messenger.
I have very vague memories of a day that I’m supposed to “Never Forget”. No one turned on the TVs so we could see what was happening on the news. No one sat down and explained why all of the adults were so absent minded. No one told us what was happening or why it was important. School went on as normal, with the exception of a few extra phone calls between classrooms and whole lot of “independent study” time. At the end of the day I got on the bus and was teased just like every other afternoon on the yellow tin can of death. I had picked up throughout the day that something was bothering the adults that they weren’t completely disclosing, but wasn’t something always bothering the adults?
In complete opposition to the adults at school who preferred we remain clueless, my mother, the Queen of Too Much Information, assumed that I knew every detail she had already absorbed. Upon reaching home I walked upstairs and noticed that my mother was sitting with my then 15-year-old brother on his bed watching the news. My mother barely removed her head from the news to anxiously say, “You’re home! Are you alright?” After a long day of being 12, I turned to her tersely and said, “Well, yeah. It’s not like a bomb went off or anything.” She looked at me like I had just dropped the f-bomb in front of her for the first time. It didn’t take but a few seconds for me to walk away so I could get on AIM and talk about how freaking cute Will Seaver was. I had things to do.
I was completely clueless at to what September 11th was or what it meant. As it was happening all of the adults around me were too concerned about what it meant to them to think about what it would mean to some kid with terrible prepubescent acne. I have had to almost completely construct my “memory” of 9/11 based off of information I received later from the news, textbooks, blogs, and teachers. I believe that this is so frustrating for me because there are two very different memories of that day for me to choose from. The first is an overly patriotic construction of deep remembrance. This construct wants me to post my Facebook status about how deep my sorrow is and stay home and watch TLC for hours. The other option is to be bitter and discuss how ridiculous the War on Terror is, spend hours reading articles on the internet, and to write long diatribes on Facebook in response to my friends’ statues.
I choose to remain totally ambivalent. How ambivalent must you be to survive in America?
No one will agree on how 9/11 should be remembered. It’s a piece of history that so many of us have to share that it will constantly be debated and argued. Everyone will attempt to back up their arguments with their own belief in being wholly correct. No one will be completely satisfied. This, however, is not a new thing for us. It’s easy to compare 9/11 to the remembrance of the Vietnam War. Both events are things that everyone will argue about and have deep connections to. They will both remain this giant thing sitting there at your dinner table, invited or not. We as a whole will also look on both events as being these giant tragedies in American history and choose to remember them the way we think we’re supposed to.
The Vietnam War Memorial was supposed to create a solemn sense of remembrance of the people over the government. However, the American people visit and search out individual names, place flags at the base, and create their own idea of how the war should be remembered. The ceremony surrounding the memorial was elaborate and patriotic and not at all what the creator of the memorial had intended. The problem was that Americans have a general belief that to honor and commemorate they must do so with large displays. The bigger the better; the larger the display the more we care.
This relates back to 9/11 rather blatantly. The media shoves “Nineelevina” in our faces every year. They have to discuss it because to not address the issue is unpatriotic and just plain wrong. Each piece of the American media wants to show that their flag flies the highest. Who shows the most survivor specials? Who puts on the biggest parade? Who does the most in depth coverage? Who’s Facebook page had the most chain-mail style status posted in one day?
Both events are things that we should always remember, but we have no idea why. Do we just feel these proud American feelings because we’re told we’re supposed to?
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