Liz Hoffman | Looking back, five years after chaos

After being in New York on Sept. 11, 2001, a lot of things changed. I started reading the newspaper. I figured out that both America and my beloved home city weren't indestructible. And to this day, I give a second look to every plane that flies over Manhattan.

It is impossible to put into words what New York was like on Sept. 11.

As the events of the day unfolded, I eagerly waited for a voice of authority to permeate the chaos. We knew that all the subways going into Manhattan were closed, and my high school was all the way up in the North Bronx.

I expected a message over the loudspeaker about the school's contingency plan if we ended up stranded, but the best advice we got was to find a friend who lived in the Bronx and spend the night with him. I kept waiting for a phone call from my parents informing me they were safe, but because cell service was spotty at best all afternoon, I had no way of knowing where they were.

When I finally made it home that night (the subways partially opened just in time), I assumed that at least the newscasters would know something new; they didn't. By dinner, the news consisted almost exclusively of footage of people jumping out of the towers and pleading for news of their loved ones. Even my parents couldn't tell me anything past what I already knew. It was incredibly unnerving, and it hit me: Adults don't know everything.

Five years after that chaotic day, 9/11 has become a symbol. It's why we went into Afghanistan, it's (to an ambiguous extent, depending on your political leanings) why we're in Iraq. It's probably why George Bush got elected to a second term. It's why everything is different now.

But for those of us from New York (and those outside New York who were directly affected), I think there will always be two 9/11's.

There's the symbolic 9/11 we hear about on the news, the one that changed the world. It's the 9/11 that is supposed to make me want to fly my American flag everywhere I go and support the War on Terror and actually listen to the national anthem at sporting events.

That first 9/11 is an abstract concept that, even five years later, I can't reconcile with the second: the events of the day itself.The worries that after airplane hijackings would come bombs dropping on apartment buildings - possibly mine. The fear that my mother had a meeting at City Hall that day, just blocks from Ground Zero. The smell that blanketed the city for days. The sight of a National Guardsman directing traffic on 86th Street and Second Avenue, his head framed by the huge cloud of dust caused by the towers' collapse.

That 9/11 is a day in my life. An awful day, but a real one. It actually happened.

I have no idea if experiencing 9/11 firsthand dramatically affected my political views. I was lucky enough not to lose anyone that day, or ever have a concrete reason to fear for my life. But I certainly experienced the 9/11 President Bush keeps talking about, and I still voted for John Kerry. I think we need to get out of Iraq sooner rather than later, although I'm grateful to all the soldiers that risked their lives and fought for us. But when the national anthem is sung during baseball games, I still spend most of it wishing the game would hurry up and start.

I apologize if you were expecting tremendous words of wisdom about the War on Terror because I spent 9/11 in New York City, I'm sorry. Realizing that adults weren't all-knowing and a seemingly unending struggle to reconcile my "two 9/11's" might not be the most groundbreaking insights in the world, but trying to sort out how I feel about that day simply because I was there is even harder than trying to make sense of the chaos of the day itself.

Our generation is going to inherit this post-9/11 world, and I don't think that I'm any more qualified to lead the way than someone who grew up in California. Both the collective and individual relationships we have with Sept. 11, 2001, are going to keep changing, and we're simply going to have to figure it out as we go along.

We're not going to be able to boil it down to just an historic event, because we lived it. We can't spend our days thinking of it as simply a collective bad day we all experienced, because we have to face it every day.

Maybe some day we'll figure it out. Maybe not. But we'll face it every day, and we'll deal with it.

We'll keep struggling. And I think the hardest thing to realize is: That's OK.

Liz Hoffman is a College junior from New York. "A lasting impact" is a week-long series featuring faculty and student reflections on the impact of Sept. 11.

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