Thoughts and crap about 9/11... on 9/11

Every year on this day for the past four years or so, I've tried to do some remembering, some reflecting, some figuring out what the hell everything means. I've never really recorded any of that anywhere, though, until now, I suppose.

Five years is an interesting anniversary (and if you don't know what I'm referring to, I have no idea what planet you live on) because it's far enough away to allow us to reflect somewhat less emotionally than we may have before, but it's still close enough that everything still seems so vivid in our minds. We all predicted that day back in 2001 that we would always remember exactly where we were when we found out. I still remember, clear as day. I was in English class in my senior year of high school. The principal made an announcement over the PA system to let us know what was going on, and my teacher immediately pointed out a grammatical error that he made, which was some remarkable composure since his son worked in the Pentagon at the time.

So what's it all mean? I'm not one to say, and there are a million other talking heads who think they are, so I'm not going to offer a grand analysis of what 9/11 means in the long term. What strikes me the most when I think back, though, is how quickly our collective grief and shock turned into national pride, the kind of which I'd never felt before. I never felt so earnestly proud to be American, and I never have since then, and probably never will again.

What makes me angry now is that patriotism and national pride have become political statements, and I don't know what's worse: that there are politicians on the right who drape themselves in the American flag to keep people from questioning the horrible things that they support (hello, Patriot Act), or that there are many people on the left (myself included, often times) who have a knee jerk reaction against the very word "patriotism," who think that being proud to be American is somehow a conservative ideal.

Aside from that, I think I'm bothered a bit by how otherwise "normal" everything seems, which just doesn't seem right somehow. All the remembering and newspaper articles and TV specials feel a little forced, but at the same time, I think I would be unhappy if it became just another day. It's going to be weird when our kids see 9/11 that way, in the same way that we see December 7, 1941.

I don't know, I started writing this with a lot of thoughts, and they've kind of dwindled down to nothing. Time to step down from my soapbox and let life go on.