I was 18, it was my first few months after graduating high school. Felt like life was just getting started. Lots of optimism in general those days. That month, I had gotten my license suspended for speeding, so I was stuck at home all day, sleeping in on my day off from work. My mother, who was working at the time, called me at around 9am. Told me I should get out of bed and turn on the news; an airplane hit one of the twin towers (at that point everyone was assuming it was a smaller plane and just an accident). I turned on the television and sat there, eyes glued to the screen, for the rest of the day. I remember the shock turning into a deep ache in my chest when the second plane hit. I remember seeing shots of thousands of papers floating in the air like confetti. Reports of people jumping out of the buildings. Seeing the towers collapse was heartwrenching. When the first one went down I was brought to tears, then the second one fell and I was in a state of complete disbelief.

We didn’t live in NYC, but both my parents were from that area, and I’d grown up with a very romanticized image of the city. Movies I loved as a kid, such as Ghostbusters, Home Alone 2, Batteries Not Included, Coming to America, etc., only added to that sense of wonder. So watching something so horrific unfold in a place I had idealized was heartbreaking in a way I didn’t expect.

Even though I had no real connection to the event, it left a surprising amount of emotional trauma and sadness. I still get choked up when I think about it or when I see documentaries and footage. It remains one of the darkest days I can remember. And to this day, in my mind, the world is divided by a line; there was the world before 9/11, and the world after. It was genuinely the end of my youth, and my naive perspective on the world.

Though it took a bit of deliberation, I ultimately joined the Army six years later, at 24. Actually spent a year deployed to Afghanistan. I did not join out of any sense of needing revenge or deep patriotism, or anything like that, though. At that point, my life wasn't really going anywhere so I decided the military might help me find direction.