Seven Years Have Passed.

Seven years have passed.

The elementary school near where I live broadcasts its morning announcements to the streets via a speaker or two on the outside. Today, they took a moment of silence for 30 seconds and I wonder "Is this what it was like in the decade immediately following Pearl Harbor or the Triangle Shirt Factory tragedy?" Do kids who only read or hear about recent tragedies through newly edited textbooks feel anything, or are they all just going through the motions like we tend to do in so many other circumstances?

Seven years have passed.

And what was once too immediate and present to speak about with anyone, has now become almost too distant and faded. I had a hard time dealing with what other people were feeling and experiencing, and hadn't really addressed or come to terms with my own feelings, and now I wonder if the time has passed. Is it time now to "move on"?

Seven years have passed.

I got a message yesterday from an old friend from whom I've grown a bit distant because of time and place. But we had worked together in communities affected by the aftermath for more than 2 years. And his mind returned to that place and time, even if he just said that he was checking in. Something remains.

It's odd to think about time before a date was reduced to a soundbite and the same video clips played over and over. I'm just as tired as anyone else, but the memories trigger something, and I'm forgetting what that innocence was. And I start to feel conflicted sometimes, because I have a better idea than many of what real loss in the wake of that loss was like, but it wasn't my own or even that of people who I knew personally. And seven years have passed.