By Riley Griffin, The Huffington Post
Every year, the anniversary of September 11th washes an array of emotions over me. As a native New Yorker, it’s hard not to feel intertwined with such a historic and relevant day. Fast-forward 12 years — I am 17 now, and each year I cope with the losses of this city. But somewhere in the folds of time remains my 5-year-old self, a girl who was absorbing the colors, smells and feelings of the world; a girl who on her first day of kindergarten was aware as smoke billowed thickly through skyscrapers that punctured a baby blue sky.
Photo from the Huffington Post.
It is surreal to have a glimpse at this cruel history through a cloud of childhood innocence. However, such innocence could not be compromised by the tragedy and grief. My emotions were not developed enough to feel the weight of the steel crashing down on the heart of our city. How could they be? My understanding of good and evil was derived from The Lion King and Cinderella — stories that simply cannot encompass the complexities of politics, or the disorganized web that holds together terrorism and corrupted love. I could not have dealt with the pain that accompanies simplification, as thousands of lives were turned into statistics. Casualties, arranged and sorted into stacks of numbers — only to be funneled into books and television — only to be embedded into history. There is so much that lies behind those numbers; passion, heartache and memories of three-dimensional human beings that I will never get the chance to know.
Moreover, I could not have understood the political impact that 9/11 would have on the future. How could a child know that the idea of “patriotism” would become so perverted? That the beautiful emblem of unity and allegiance would become a justification for greed, as the government hustled for oil and revenge? No, at five I would not have predicted the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, nor the $1 trillion dollars added to our deficit for bloodshed. I could not foreseen the snowball effect of hostility that would compile more people into statistics, continuing fatalities on a disillusioned battlefield and stealing lives in the name of Uncle Sam.
Read the full experience by Riley Griffin of the Huffington Post
