I Was a Millennium Teenager

Reflections on September of 2001

Ten years ago this month, I left girlhood. Note that I didn't write "began adulthood," because that implies growth and almost some sort of finality, which is not at all what I mean to say. Rather, ten years ago this month, I left behind that elusive, youthful, unwavering acceptance and moved on to the decidedly adolescent state filled with torrential questions, occasionally sprinkled with inklings of answers.

Admittedly, my reflections on the tenth anniversary of a particular September day had a part in inspiring me to write this, but that day is not my only reason for earmarking this month. I was twelve years old when September of 2001 began. I was beginning the eighth grade in the same small town that I'd always lived in. Though we were in the same building as the previous year, we were now upstairs, freed from the tiny underground dungeon-like back corner. It was exciting to have more space to occupy and further to travel between classes as we roamed what had formerly been the high school hallways.

Around the beginning of the school year, tryouts for the eighth grade soccer team began. I had grown up playing town soccer in the fall, so playing in school once it was possible seemed like the next logical step. I joined many of the girls I grew up with in this cohort, and most of us had played together for years. So, was I worried? The thought didn’t even cross my mind. I had no reason to be. Plus, I hardly knew what worrying was.

We've all (well, anyone older than three at the time) got our flashbulb memories from September 11, 2001. I was in shop class sitting at a tall drafting table when someone came in late from a doctor's appointment with news of the outside world and the skeleton story of the news started to spread: a plane had crashed in New York. We were dismissed from school early, no afterschool activities, not even the seemingly paramount soccer tryouts. Surrounded by never-before-seen fear in adults’ eyes, I wasn’t sure what to do. As the sun went down and indelible nauseating images danced in the family room, it seemed much too real, even on our small outdated TV, even when I knew that my family was safe.  For days and weeks, the news continued to disturb, confuse, and occasionally inspire as our Boston suburb filled with both heartbreaking and miracle stories surrounding the people and planes from Logan. Any anger or pessimism that erupts in me from viewing artifacts of that day are, perhaps selfishly, overshadowed by the hopeful frustration of wondering what I will do to negate the evil and sadness that will always exist in the world.

Sometime in the three days between September 11th and my birthday, I got cut from the soccer team. After recent events, I'd gained some perspective and saw that, in the grand scheme of things, getting cut from a team was virtually meaningless. Or that's what I should have realized. In actuality, I was devastated. Things hadn’t settled enough for my young mind to even begin to gain the experience-born skill of perspective; the seeds of a sense of something larger than my sole person were just beginning to incubate. Meanwhile, I was focused on my immediate self.  Having generally succeeded in the activities that I spent time on (primarily my education), I had never faced such a blatant and seemingly important failure. I struggled with my identity too: I had always been whatever the childhood equivalent of an athlete is, but what was I now? As painful as the embarrassment and confusion was, a new feeling of individuation—the realization that I was a separate person from everyone I had grown up doing the same things with—jolted me.

Four days later after September 11th, still in the thick of discussion and emotions, came my birthday. I was officially a teenager, and how fitting it was to be entering such a classically turbulent time when this whole world I was just beginning to know was also shaken. I have another flashbulb memory of my family gathering around and lighting the candles on my ice cream cake, singing and pretending this was just like any other year, while I thought, "This isn't right."

That September, I learned a basic lesson that I now realize opened the door for self-actualization: I am an individual part of a very big world. Now, I'm pretty sure that had I not learned this fable then, I would have been forced to learn it soon enough. After all, it’s a pretty inevitable understanding for someone lucky enough to have the time and resources to do any sitting around and pondering. So yes, maybe the events of September of 2001 forced me out of girlhood too soon or too suddenly. I’m sure there’s a gentler, more romantic way to realize the wider wide—I’m thinking a trip to Paris—but that wasn’t how it would be for me. No, for me, it was attacks on my self-identity and my country that illuminated all the smoke and light, ash and color of the world I had been living in.

On many days, I’m still overwhelmed by the world that I discovered that month, the world I still live in. I realized the two pieces of the puzzle that September: myself and my world. The panic that comes from not knowing how to fit these pieces together only grows stronger with time. Had I not realized the terrifyingly vast and occasionally terrifying fullness of the world that September, I wouldn’t know this motivating frustration. I’d probably still be in that haze, bogged down by the near-sighted bubble of anger and sadness. Instead, ten years ago, I began to emerge out of a sparkling smoke that I could only see from the skies above. Seeing that cloud for the first time, pasted on a blue background, was both disturbing and comforting—terrifying because I had to see it, but comforting because I could see it.