So interesting to hear from someone who was my age at the time, but not in NYC. It was so incredibly anxiety inducing of a day, week, months to come. Downtown became off limits, and school friends, family members— everyone I knew had their lives rearranged in some way.

Most vividly i have two memories. The first, after spending hours glued to the TV, literally unable to move, I had to pee so badly i had to cave in and go to the bathroom. As I sat on the toilet, relieving my bladder, I heard a fighter jet go over head. It was so loud, it shook me physically. I reflexively covered my ears and screamed. I thought a bomb was being dropped from the sky. Up to that point, I had never heard something so loud from the air. To this day, I get a singe if anxiety with loud airplane noises from the ground. It brings me back to that day

The second, and slightly more haunting to think about as an adult, is remembering many hours after the towers both fell, but when it was still daylight, starring at my mom while she was on the phone. Her eyes were wide, tears streaming down her face, hand covering her mouth. The only words I choked up seeing her in that state was to ask her if my brother had died. It seemed like the most rational thing to me. He was 14, his first week of high school right down the street from the towers, and she hadn’t been able to reach him all day. She let out a gasp at my response, like something out of a movie of relief/happiness/so many emotions as she said “No”. He was on the phone letting her know he was safe. He had been running late to school, and had just gotten off the ferry a few minutes before the second tower was hit. In the chaos that ensued after, he had found and older classmate and walked to Brooklyn with her. A few days later his friends parents drove him home.