I was 20 years old in 2001, working the overnight shift at Home Depot in Waterbury. I’ll never forget that Tuesday morning. I clocked out at 7 a.m., walked home—just a short walk in the early light—and remember thinking how beautiful the morning was. Clear skies. Crisp air. The kind of day that made you feel like life was wide open.

Some friends and I had plans to play basketball later, so I laid down for a nap, tired but content. At that moment, the world still made sense.

I didn’t have a TV. Social media didn’t exist yet. There were no notifications, no constant newsfeeds. When you unplugged, you were truly disconnected. That was normal then. And so I slept, unaware of what had just happened.

A few hours later, my friends showed up to get me for our game. But something was off. I could tell the minute they walked in. They looked at me, almost shocked, and said, “You don’t know, do you?”

I sat up. “Know what?”

“The Towers are gone.”

I blinked. “What do you mean, gone?”

They started describing what had happened—planes crashing into the World Trade Center, buildings collapsing, the Pentagon, hijackings. It sounded like a scene out of a Hollywood disaster movie. I thought they were pulling some kind of twisted prank. Joking, maybe. Exaggerating for effect. Because how could something like that be real?

But as the day went on, there was a quietness in the air I couldn’t ignore. Sirens in the distance. The absence of planes overhead. Every person we passed seemed to have the same look of disbelief on their face.

Still, I hadn’t seen it. Not yet. I didn’t know it in my bones.

It wasn’t until 10 p.m. when I returned to work that I fully entered the new world. The entire overnight crew was gathered in the breakroom, eyes glued to the TV. The footage was on a loop—smoke billowing, towers falling, people running through dust-covered streets.

I stood there frozen. Speechless. Watching what everyone else had been watching for the past 15 hours. That was the moment my world changed too.

For about 10 hours on 9/11, I was still living in the old world. A world before we knew what it meant to feel so vulnerable, so suddenly. Before we started measuring time as “before” and “after” that morning.

And now, every September 11th, I think back to that surreal day. I think of the victims, the heroes, the lives shattered and forever altered. I think of the innocence we lost—and how even a clear, blue sky can carry the weight of memory.

We all have a story from that day. That was mine. Where were you?