ate moving. I hate change. But over my lifetime it has brought me experiences and friendships and understanding of the world around me that staying in one place would have never given me.
What Are We Remembering?
On this 20th anniversary, and every anniversary that follows, let us remember September 11, 2001 as a time of grief and unity, fear and hope, hatred and love, terror and resurrection. Let us embrace the both/and of the event that changed all of our lives so that our children can fully understand the moment that shaped their future.
Hindsight Completes the Narrative
Hindsight can only truly be 20/20 if we are given the necessary space to find the language to describe our grief and our triumphs. It can only truly be 20/20 if we are honest with each other and ourselves about how the experience has, or has not, impacted us. And it can only be truly 20/20 if we stop to listen to the experiences of others.
We Need Our Villages
And so we’re working on rebuilding our village, a village with a few satelite campuses scattered throughout the country, but more importantly a local village that will continue to walk with us through all that life continues to hand us.
Making Meaning Instead of Searching for Purpose in the Journey
I know God will turn the ugliness of right now into something. That isn’t purpose; that’s making a meaningless situation into something meaningful. I can believe that we have made the right decisions related to jobs and moving and believe that it is what we are supposed to do and at the same time not believe that everything leading up to those decisions was guided by a greater purpose.
The Lessons We’ve Learned in Texas
When my husband asked me a couple of months ago if I regretted our move to Texas, I had to think for a moment before I gave him an honest “no.” We had a good five years here, and the sixth year was rough for a pile of different reasons. But those good five years, and the good moments in that sixth year, just highlighted the many things, positive and negative, that we learned about our temporarily adopted state.