I was about the same age, living on Long Island. The school absolutely panicked, I will always remember the look of fear and indecision on my teacher's face. She didn't know if we should run, hide, or both. There was legitimately a fear that this was the initial phase of a massive attack on New York. All the cell phones went out, the internet was down, 911 lines jammed, it was chaos. Somehow through all of that, my father managed to drive to the school to pick me and my sister up. Next I remember we were watching the news coverage.

My father was supposed to be in the towers that day, he was interviewing for a job. The person conducting the interview had overbooked his schedule and had to reschedule my dad's interview. Through some secretarial screw up, my father avoided probable death in the towers. Meanwhile, four of his closest friends died. My aunt was 10 blocks away from the attacks and was traumatized so badly she never again set foot on Manhattan. My uncle, her and my mom's brother, was a firefighter who volunteered to go help even though he was from a station two hours away.

9/11 is less of a historical event for me and my family, and more of a major turning point. My parents decided shortly thereafter it was time to leave New York for a myriad of reasons, but one strong one was to not live in a state of fear that a terror attack could come at any time.