my days always dry up and blow away

It's just another day now. People forget and don't remember until they turn on the television and they're shocked. It's been six years? they wonder as the flip through the channels, because it's just another Tuesday and it's beautiful outside.

One story in a myriad of tales and broken hearts and shattered lives.

My dad was working in D.C. at the time. I didn't connect the two and two together at first.

I was in the eighth grade, 13 at the time, and it was just another morning. I sat down in Earth Science, behind Ben, who was teasing me about something I said or did. Our teacher, Mrs. Smith said something about a plane hitting the Twin Towers, and he and I laughed. We thought it was some little glider and didn't think much of it.

A few minutes later, our principle came over the intercom announcing what had happened. A disaster had occurred, many people were seriously hurt and we needed to pray. The entire school fell silent as she prayed, our heads bent down in solemn recognition. God had a plan, an intention and would help the city of New York during this time, she said.

It dawned on me. My uncle was in New York City, in Manhattan in fact. Was he okay? Our day continued, and we weren't allowed to call our parents or watch the television. No one was allowed to pick up their children; they were determined for this day to continue. No one told us about the Pentagon. No one would tell us a single thing. I think it was this moment that I truly began to resent my middle school.

Sometime during the late afternoon we had to go to the media center to work on a project. The librarian had CNN on and we gathered around the television, all of us curious. What had happened? She turned it off when the teacher told us to get back to work.

The entire day I was left in the dark. My mother picked us up from school, throughly distraught that they wouldn't let her come earlier. She didn't want to make dinner that night, since it was just her and my dad was away on business. It was during the ride home from school that my mom told me about the Pentagon. Not that my father would have been anywhere nearby, but she assured us he was okay.

We went to the Chinese restaurant, where the people knew us by name. They had a gigantic television, and for the first time all day I saw it: the footage of the towers falling. People screaming and crying.

That night, as I had my radio on before I went to bed, I fell asleep to patriotic music because that's all they were playing.

What was your day like?