You Say It’s Your Birthday…

9/11 memorial blog posts, retrospective TV shows, and new articles are all over the media this week, as I knew they would be. Many of them mention the “almost ten years” since the day we watched live as what we first thought must be a tragic accident turned into an act of terror we could scarcely comprehend, even though it happened right in front of our eyes. I can only imagine what the coverage will be like next year, when it really is the ten-year anniversary.

It’s also my birthday. That 9/11 was my thirtieth birthday. I’ve written a little about that before, here.

It’s a strange day to have a birthday. In the post-9/11 world, celebrating anything today always seems a little disrespectful, somehow. Kind of like having your birthday on Remembrance Day, I guess.

But being an introspective person, my birthday is also about reflecting on where I’m going, where I’ve been, where I am. And I can – and do – give a nod of thanks to those who lost their lives that day for pushing me to live mine the way I want to. So I’ll do that, and celebrate, too, because I can, and when you think of all the people who can’t, that’s as good a reason as any. I think they’d understand.