I was 18. 9/11 is *the* defining national, global moment of my adult life. I had friends in the military, not much older than me, who called to tell me they’d been activated and to say goodbye, just in case. #NeverForget #WhereWereYou #PatriotDay #September11 https://twitter.com/russell_nm/status/1304432009335517185

I woke up to my alarm clock, on 99.1, and in the moment it took me to reach over to hit snooze I heard one of the DJs ask, “The top of the building is on fire?”

It got my attention. But I had no idea, none, what they were referring to.

So I sat up and turned on our small, no-cable (cause it didn’t work in our dorm room) TV. One WTC tower was on fire. A plane had hit it. I was too...tired? young? unfamiliar with flying?...to understand this wasn’t an accident. I think many people thought it was.

My roommate woke up. We sat there and that’s when we saw the second plane hit. Live.

We just stared at one another. “I don’t have my contacts in and I saw that,” she said, after a few minutes of silence. “This is bad.”

My first instinct was to call my mom. She worked downtown across from the federal building. I wanted her out of there. No one in her office had any idea what was going on until I called her.

At this point, they hadn’t canceled class, so I stopped in the cafeteria for a coffee. I told a girl, Miriam, what had happened. She bowed, her head in her hands, and prayed.

In class, so many people were on their phones. Calling loved ones who were flying. Trying to get news. I think my college wanted normalcy, so we kept working and would get updated as people left the room to take calls.

This is how we learned the towers collapsed. About the pentagon. Flight 93. Secondhand info over old cell phones.

At some point, we went to the computer lab and then I saw some of the news. I was working on a project when a runner came around and said the campus was closing at noon, and we should al go home or go back to the dorms.

I emailed my mom at work: CAMPUS CLOSING. PLEASE GO HOME. I AM SCARED.

Just like that. All caps. I was.

I went back to the dorms. Cassie was in the lobby. She came to my room and sat, cross-legged, on the floor. In silence. I can still see her red Converse. Her jeans. Her gray t-shirt. This look of utter devastation and sadness on her face. And probably mine.

Mom called. She’d left work. They all did. Because of the federal building. No one was sure if there’d be more attacks or what the target(s) might be.

She wanted me to come home. So we could be together. They didn’t live far from campus so I did.

I remember walking to my car, and in the drive outside the building was a taxi. Driverless. It scared me. I was certain it was going to blow up and kill us. Absolutely terrified. It didn’t, but that’s the fear that permeated that day. And I was in WI. Not DC. Not NY. Not PA.

I can’t imagine being in one of those cities.

I picked up my brother, who was still in high school. He knew a little. But it was everywhere — every radio station. Even MTV was all news. Now, I get it. But as an 18 year old with the world burning, I wanted to escape it.

Mom made steak and baked potatoes and salad for dinner. She wanted us to have a good meal, as a family. I don’t think she knew what else to do for us. What can you do? But I still remember sitting and eating it and watching the news.

I decided to go back to the dorm, to check on my roommate and friends. My roommate was packing a bag to head to her family’s house in Racine. I was going to be alone.

I didn’t sleep much. A few other girls were in the dorms, and at some point in the night, the neighbor turned on a fan. I woke up thinking it was a plane (flights had been grounded) and looked out into the night sky, terrified.

To this day, I still sometimes look at planes and wonder if they’re supposed to be there. It took every ounce of courage (and a couple of glasses of red winery 10 am) to get on a plane in 2015 to fly to NYC.

In NYC, I went to Ground Zero. The museum. I don’t regret it. I cried. A lot. It was raining and I was soaked so no one could see the tears. I want to go back.

Today, I’ll replay some of the news footage for my boys, at least the older two, so they can understand and so we don’t forget. We can’t forget.