End of an era *double edit*

Earlier today, a friend of mine from Canada sent me an instant message on MSN messenger. The first thing she said was “You must be thrilled .“ She was, of course, talking about the huge headline of last night/today that everyone has seen, unless they’ve been living under a rock for the last 24 hours or so. She was talking about the news that yesterday the United States killed Osama bin Laden. When my friend asked me if I was thrilled, it forced me to stop and actually think about how I was feeling.

Last night I got the CNN breaking news email a few minutes before 10 pm that said CNN was reporting that Osama bin Laden had been killed and immediately turned off my dvd player and put on NBC. By that time, Brian Williams and company had already taken over and I realized that it was true. I say that because when I first saw that email from CNN, I did a double take and didn’t quite believe it. But the way Brian Williams was talking about it, I knew it had to be real. I spent much of the next hour shaking my head in disbelief. Ultimately I stayed up to watch President Obama speak. I thought his remarks were quite good and very appropriate.

Even this morning as I watched the special edition of The Today Show and they talked through what happened and what it means going forward, I never stopped to really process my own feelings on the matter. Whether you knew someone killed on 9/11 or not, that day forever changed how Americans viewed and interacted with the world. Yes, it also meant changes around the world but the biggest changes took place here in the United States.

It’s now been 24 hours since I heard the news and I’m still no closer to sorting out how I feel. I didn’t know anyone who was killed on 9/11. I don’t live anywhere near any of the places attacked on 9/11 and yet 9/11 changed everything. There’s so much about that day that I’ll never forget. I’ll never forget when we began bombing Afghanistan. And now, the reason for going to war in Afghanistan is over. We went to war to find Osama bin Laden, one of the masterminds of the 9/11 attacks and (at the time) the leader of Al Qaeda. I know there’s always been a part of me that wondered if we’d ever find Osama bin Laden. I know that finding him now doesn’t handle the bigger Al Qaeda issues and yet there’s something hugely symbolic about the US finally getting Public Enemy #1. I’ve not celebrated his death, but I’m glad to know he can no longer plot against the good and decent people of the world. It’s all just a little surreal. The fact that he was still out there was like this black cloud hanging over everything, but we’d forgotten that black cloud was there until it was gone. It’s like the events of 9/11 created a black cloud over everything we do, everything we experience, everything we are but it’s been so long now that we’ve learned to live with the cloud and have grown used to it. The cloud didn’t go away with time, we simply learned to accept it as part of reality. But with the death of Osama bin Laden, a lot of that cloud has been lifted and we can see now what a pall it cast over every part of our lives. That black cloud is still there, and I’m not sure it will ever leave, but the darkest part of it is gone.

Now the question is where do we go from here? The death of Osama bin Laden closes a chapter filled with horrific lows and hopeful highs. However, I don’t believe this is the end of America’s story, so the question now is what does the next chapter bring us? What direction do we want to go?

*Edit* I saw this link today and it really sums up how I feel about all of it, and why it’s hard to put into words. The 9/11 Generation’s Bogeyman Is Gone (opens in new window)

"Life is measured not by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."

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