I was laying in bed flipping channels last night and landed on Discovery or National Geographic or some channel of their ilk that was showing clips from the September 11th attacks. They say that everyone has a handful of events that are seared into their memory and I guess for everyone above a certain age, that’s going to be one of them that sticks with us forever. Watching it last night felt unnervingly like seeing it happen again for the first time, maybe even worse now, because we know everything that’s still about to happen. The disbelief of watching the first plane strike the North Tower, the second plane streaking across the skyline and exploding through the South Tower, and the few grainy frames of a jetliner slamming into the Pentagon, still bring a visceral, sickening tightness to my chest.

Eleven years later, watching those towers fall still feels like getting hit with a sucker punch every single time I see it. Whenever I walk outside and look up to see a vibrant blue, cloudless sky, I remember… and it fills me with equal parts sadness and rage that such a thing could happen on our streets and in this country in the 21st century. Whether it’s 11 years, or fifty, or a lifetime, I don’t think that’s something that will ever go away. Eleven years gone, and it still feels like yesterday.