Everyone remembers where they were when it happened: When almost 3,000 Americans lost their lives in a matter of minutes. For no good reason at all. And we shuddered at the thought of being in New York City at that moment–how if we were there we probably would have thought the world was ending.

The news came down along different channels; for me, it was a phone call from my mother as I was just about to walk out the door for Biology Lab. She sounded terrified. She told me to immediately turn on the television. She wished that I was home, because she was afraid of me being so far away in that moment.

I watched the second tower fall on my little 13″ screen.

No time for a shower that morning, because I’d been up late playing Counter-Strike and as a result had grossly overslept. I hadn’t even the time to put on a bra, and I never ever went out of my dorm room without one. For a moment, as I sat gaping at the pictures and listening to my mother recap what had transpired, I thought about getting into my car and driving straight to my parents’ house. But then I remembered that if I missed another Biology Lab I would automatically receive a “C”.

Now I see a lot that my shock wouldn’t allow me to perceive. In hindsight, the situation was ironic: Just hours before, I’d been running around as a terrorist in a video game. In hindsight, I’m lucky that the biggest thing I had to worry about that day was the fact that I was braless in public for the first time since elementary school. In hindsight, being angry at the TA for not letting us out of Lab to watch the news was really silly. Canceling Lab would have been giving in.

Please read this. And realize how lucky we all are to be alive; to remember; to be sad. My father says that every second you live is one that you never get back. When I think about the folks who didn’t have a choice about how to spend their remaining seconds, I am incredibly humbled.