9/11.

 On September 11, 2001, I walked into the school library before my first class and saw everyone sitting in silence, listening to a radio. My friend Alex saw the confused look on my face and pulled me back out into the hallway.

"Do you know what happened?" she asked.

"No..." I said.

"There was a terrorist attack in New York City. Two planes hit the World Trade Center this morning."

I immediately called my mom and told her to turn on the TV. I rushed up to the cafeteria where a mini-television had been set up and gaped at the horrifying images of the second plane crashing into the Twin Towers - an image the whole country is now familiar with.

In the following days and weeks, the sounds and images of that fateful day hung over all of our heads like a dark cloud. But the fact of the matter was...those of us in California were far removed from the situation, unless we had family or friends who lived in New York City, which I didn't. The story of it all captivated me and caused me to shed tears, but it was like watching a documentary of something that happened in another world, in another time.

Fast forward eight and a half years: I have been living in Manhattan for three months. Dylan comes to visit and we go on an NYC tour extravaganza which includes a trip down to Ground Zero. Standing in the plaza just outside the construction site, we look up and find it hard to believe that this was the very spot where the towers once stood, where hundreds and hundreds of people lost their lives that day, where prideful city dwellers lost their sense of security in a matter of moments.

Walking away from the site, I remember Dylan and I talked about how different our experience of 9/11 was as California natives, and how different my perspective of that day is now that I live here.

Every year, around this time, the interviews and reports and reruns of that day are aired all over the radio and television waves, splashed on the front covers of newspapers and magazines. It always makes me cry.

This year, as the tenth anniversary approaches, New York City is stirring with news of terror threats, anticipated riots and marches, and the grand opening of the massive 9/11 memorial project down by Ground Zero. It's a little unnerving. It's a little scary.

This morning, on The Today Show, Matt Lauer reconnected with six teenagers who were on the show ten years ago after they lost their parents in the attacks. They showed one boy's interview with Matt just a few weeks after he lost his father - a firefighter who walked into the frenzy to find people who needed help. In the clip, Matt Lauer told the boy his dad was a hero. At these words, the 10-year-old boy breaks down and as a result, I break down too. Through my tears, I realize I am not the removed California high-schooler that I was ten years ago.

That moment during which I watched Matt Lauer try to console such an innocent child reminded me that even though I may have felt disconnected horror with what happened ten years ago, it doesn't mean I feel disconnected now. On this day, at this moment, New York City is my city. I feel the wrath that the people here felt - they were attacked, they were terrorized, and ten years later, they still remember.

On Sunday, the tenth anniversary, Nick and I don't have plans. Most Sundays we stay home and clean, do laundry, take it easy. Nick has to study for the GREs and I am back in the throes of school and homework but I imagine that on this particular Sunday, we will leave the news on all day and, with the rest of the city, with the rest of the country, remember what happened ten years before.