The Bizarre Mindf*ck of Having Happy Memories of 9/11

My life changed forever on September 11, 2001, and not in completely bad ways.

People often say that the lives of all Americans changed on September 11, 2001. I think mine changed more than most.

I was a freshman in college, and the first plane hit the North Tower during my first ever college class. I think it was Intro to Sociology. I was on the Men's Soccer team and we were supposed to have our first game of the season later that afternoon, and that was all I could think about that morning.

When I got back to my dorm room, my roommates were staring, mouths agape, at the television. "A plane hit the World Trade Center," one of them said. In my mind, I pictured a prop plane accidentally colliding with one of the towers. Just then, on the TV, we saw a plane fly into a tower.

"Oh someone got the plane on video," I said. My roommates were ashen faced.

"No dude, that was a second plane!"

In that moment, we all knew the lives we knew, that we all grew up in, were about to change. The thing is, my life had already changed earlier that day.

I first met her a couple days before. I had already been on campus for a couple weeks for the soccer team's preseason, and I was already kind of seeing (hooking up with) a fellow freshman on the women's soccer team. I am not proud of how this eventually went down.

She lived on the first floor of her dorm room and I happened to have been walking by her window while she was jokingly doing the Cameron Diaz butt dance from Charlie's Angels in front of her roommates. We briefly made eye contact and then we all burst our laughing before I continued on to drink with the boys.

Later on, full of liquid courage, I walked up to her window, where her and her friends were still hanging out.

"You're a good dancer," I said. What a doofus. She invited me in.

That was the Friday before 9/11, the night after all the freshmen moved in. We spent all weekend together.

I frequently think about the innocence of my childhood. As a white American who grew up in rural and suburban areas, the world I grew up in disappeared overnight on 9/11.

Sure there are the usual memories, like my grandparents greeting us at the airport gate, or vice versa. Or the way people just didn't really think about security the same way back then. My parents used to leave our doors unlocked at home.

But I also think about the way the appearance of cops has changed in that time. I don't remember police wearing all black and body armor or carrying AR-15s before 9/11, unless it was the SWAT Team. But now every cop looks like SWAT.

The first sight of security officers on the streets of New York City in fatigues, body armor, and a long gun was seismic in its shock. But if you ask my kids what they think about that appearance today, they shrug because they've never experienced anything differently.

Suddenly you were conscious of what happened "over there" or the limitations on your liberty. You suddenly thought twice about saying the word "bomb" over the phone lest some government suit in the NSA flags it and the FBI shows up at your door. I don't know of anyone this actually happened to but I guarantee everyone back then thought it could happen.

It was the first time I really understood how scary the sheer scale of our government could be.