I’ll never forget where I was, what I was doing, who I was with when I heard that the first plane hit. And then the second. The sheer disbelief of it all. And then watching it unfold right before our eyes. It seems like it JUST happened. I can distinctly remember my friend Lisa coming out of her office next door and saying a plane hit the World Trade Center. And I remember my first thought: “What kind of dope makes a mistake like that? Those damn Cessnas.” It never even entered my mind that it was a passenger plane. I figured it was some dipshit unqualified pilot who couldn’t figure out how to fly her new toy and smacked into the building. Like seriously… It never even dawned on me that this was an intentional act.

Every year on this date, I think of those that were lost on that fateful day. People who were just going about their regular morning: Getting settled in their offices for work, walking to grab a coffee on a sunny morning, catching an early flight to California. Regular everyday shit. And then, this. How? Wait, what? No.

Sitting on the mats in our company gym, glued to the television news reports and seeing the terrible images and feeling so helpless that this brutal shit was going down in my favorite city. Hearing our company president, in his low Dutch voice, say, “Lauren, find Linda. She’s in that area doing an install.” Worried about our friend and co-workers that were in that area for a few days to get a system up and running. Glued to the TV. And then watching the Towers fall… holy shit I can still see it happening.

We all left work early. I drove home stunned, crying, listening to the radio reports of more planes out there, potentially headed for the Capital. This was just so unreal, like a bad dream. And as I approached my driveway on Hartwell Avenue in Littleton, I saw that my father had put American flags up and down our property line along the street. And that just sent me over the edge.

The days and weeks that followed. The sadness that overcame everyone. The searching. The rubble. The changed skyline. It was a living nightmare. And that is from someone that wasn’t directly affected by this tragedy. I didn’t lose anyone. I didn’t see it happen. I didn’t have to race over the Brooklyn bridge, through the smoke and debris looking for safety. Yet it impacted me profoundly.

And it is something that I think about regularly, 23 years later. Not just on this day but on many days. Thinking of how our way of life, sense of freedom and safety and fear of similar occurrences could happen again in a second.

All these years later and the many trips we take as a family to NYC, I’ve never been down to the Memorial or Freedom Tower. I just can’t. I remember as a kid walking around there with my dad and it just makes me so sad and overwhelmed to even think about going to that place and feeling for those we lost. I don’t think this semi New Yorker could bear to do that now or anytime in the future.

And so I remember today, 23 years ago. And yesterday, 23 years ago. And tomorrow, 23 years ago. And I choose to never forget the families, the parents, the spouses, the children, the first responders and even George W. Bush during these days that surround our national tragedy that forever changed the landscape and emotion of our country.