As I sit here clearing out spam comments from the New York Times Spelling Bee on September 11, 2026, I find myself thinking back to that day in 2001. I was already in school because I’m an hour ahead in timezones compared to the people that matter in the world. I was in Social Studies class of all places. The English teacher burst into the room and exclaimed that a plane had just hit the World Trade Centre. I didn’t know what a World Trade Centre was, and I couldn’t understand why a plane would just go into it. The people onboard would havve had other places they wanted to be. Who goes aling with that sort of thing. From that point on in the class, whatever lesson plan we had was ditched and it became “Social Studies Live” as we tried our best to understand this new situation as information was coming in.
I went home from school, did my normal things with my friends. Meanwhile in a place just over a day’s drive from us, the world was changing forever. Flying would never be the same. People all over the world would help in different ways in the days after, and that was definitely good. Twenty five years later, I have no idea why it had to happen, just like that 12 year old kid. Now there are countless documentaries and books, adn I still don’t get it. It’s one of those things I’m not meant to understand fully. In this case, that’s ok. I don’t think I’d want to know even now.