Each and every September 11th I wake up and remember that day. That horrible day.
I am taken back to where I was, what I was doing, and mostly what I was feeling.
So I wanted to share that with you...
On September 11th, 2001, I was a sophomore at Iowa State University. I was an RA (Resident Assistant.) There were 60 co-ed students that lived on my floor. I was living in residence hall on campus called "The Towers." And no, the irony is not lost on me.
I woke up that day and turned on the TV to check the weather. I wanted to know what I needed to wear that day to class.
What I saw was not the weather. What I saw was a plane crashing into the World Trade Center.
My first thought, was disbelief. I didn't know what I was seeing. I literally could NOT process it.
Back in 2001, a lot of the breaking news still happened on TV. We didn't have twitter back then and when you wanted to know if something was real: You turned on the TV. If something was REALLY real, it was happening on every channel.
I flipped the channel. Same thing. A plane crashing into the World Trade Center. I changed the channel. Same thing.
It was on every channel.
It had to be real.
It didn't make sense.
I stood there watching. My mouth agape. In utter disbelief.
My door was open to my room. I'm certain that residents saw me just standing there in shock.
All I wanted to do was just quickly check the weather before heading off to class. I wanted to know if I needed to bring a sweatshirt that day to class. That's it. I didn't want to know that my life was forever changed.
What I found out was much much more than I anticipated.
So my door is ajar and residents start knocking on it. Asking questions. "Did I see the TV??" "Is it real?" "What is going on?" "Do we have to go to class??"
I didn't know what to tell them. I literally could not understand what was going on. So, I told them to go to class.
I didn't go to class. I couldn't. (I always went to my classes.) Ok, MOST of my classes.
So here I am, skipping classes I usually go to all the time. In order to process this...So I can give my residents some answers. And I too needed answers.
Everyone went to class and I stayed back and watched the TV. I just stood in front of it for hours and watched. After hours I still had no answers. When residents came back for lunch and asked me again if they had to go to class. I told them they didn't have to. I told them that their professors would understand. That they HAD to understand.
Everyone went to their rooms and watched.
We all were in shock.
I remember President Bush coming on TV.
If the President was on...It is in fact real.
The news stations just kept showing the towers coming down. It seemed to be on a loop or something. I must have watched it happen 100 times. I couldn't turn away. I couldn't eat. Or sleep. I had to process this.
No one knew what to do. No one had answers. We kind of just went through the motions of life for a while.
After a couple days we went back to class.
We went back to class because we couldn't take watching the news coverage. We wanted to get back to our lives. We went to escape reality.
I don't remember the specifics about what actually happened in the days afterwards. It was all a haze.
Personally, I was reflective in the weeks and months afterwards. In 1999, we had taken a High School senior trip to NYC. I remember seeing the towers. I knew they were real because I had seen them with my own eyes. I had taken photos of them. They were part of the landscape. And I remember thinking that I would never again see the towers. That when I had children of my own, and took them to New York City, that THEY would never see the towers. I remember the feeling that nothing would ever be the same again.
And it wasn't.
Many things have changed since that day.
The one thing that remains the same is how I felt on that day. How after the utter disbelief, the feeling of shock...How we as a nation came together.
In my lifetime I have never had that feeling. It was a sense of unity. There wasn't a single American that did not feel connected to their fellow man. There wasn't a single person that did not feel changed in some way. We all had this shared feeling of sadness. We also had a shared feeling of hope. Hope that we would someday make sense of this. Hope that this would never happen again.
I want to have that feeling again. But I want it to happen WITHOUT the devastation. It was the first and only time in my adult life that I felt that we could truly come together...No matter what side of the fence we sit on. And pull for our nation. As one.
This year is election year. As I'm sure you know...If you have a TV, or the internet, or read the paper, or have ever left your house for any reason.
All we have is the present and the future. The past has happened already. And I am hopeful that our country can and will once again come together. We have a couple of rough months ahead of us before the election. I call it "rough" because we will have to endure these horrible and never-ending political ads...endless Facebook political rants...never ending TV coverage of debates and opinions...
Do your part. Vote. Be part of the the solution. It doesn't matter which side you stand on. Or if on a side at all. However, it does matter that you be part of it.
Voting is something that shows America that you care. That you care about how things are going and it's future. It is a way to show that you want something better. That you are willing to be part of the process.
It is my hope that this election year, that voters turn out in record numbers. That we shock the leaders of America and the world as a whole by showing up and saying "Yes, we still care and that's why we're here."
If anything show up to vote for those that cannot. For those that had their right to vote taken away on that September 11th day.
I want to have hope that we are willing to do our part,and vote...In hopes that our leaders will do theirs, and lead.
To register to vote and or request a ballet by mail go to: www.gottavote.org
Miss Oakley
