I was at a hardware store buying lumber a few days ago. The cashier was an older man, probably around my father’s age. He had the same graying hair, same ruddy complexion, same glasses hanging from a lanyard around his neck. Between customers, a look of distance and hardness swept over his face. Perhaps like my father, it masked the frustrations and regrets of a difficult life.

I was picking up some white oak 2x4s. I write software for a living. Six months into the COVID pandemic, staying at home in front of a screen began to feel like living in an asylum. I decided carpentry would be a good way to offset long hours of sitting, an opportunity to exercise craftsmanship that I rarely got in my day job.

I inspected and picked out my 2x4s, then proceeded to the cash register. The store has a rewards program and I’m a regular now. I recited my phone number to the cashier, which has my home town’s area code. He asked where it was from. When I told him, his face brightened. He was an east coast transplant himself. He reminisced briefly about places he’d lived as a military child before settling in California in 1986. I remarked – a bit tactlessly, I admit – that he’d lived in California longer than I’d been alive. He grinned, rolled his eyes, and muttered something about how time really does fly. As I put my debit card into the card reader, he asked if I could believe the upcoming 9/11 anniversary was almost here. I paused as I was prompted for a PIN. It was August already. Where had the summer gone? Days and weeks and months drag on endlessly when we’re children. Now the days blur together, like running a thumbnail along the edge of a book’s pages. The year 2011 flashed in my mind for a moment. That’s not right, I thought, surprised. The attacks happened in 2001, twenty years ago.

I was in middle school when the attacks happened. We were in the cafeteria eating lunch on a folding table, the kind that folds in half to be rolled away so the cafeteria can be used for gym class. A friend – hyperactive with a penchant for outrageous storytelling – barely sat down before launching into a rant about a plane crashing into some building in New York. We didn’t bat an eye at this news. I nodded and pictured a malfunctioning Cessna falling into a lumber warehouse. Nothing to get excited about. We continued lunch like typical middle school boys, eating fries and chattering about girls.

After lunch, I grabbed books from my locker and walked upstairs to my first afternoon class. Teachers were marching quickly and nervously. A few students were crying in classrooms I passed. I thought about my friend’s lunch news. I got to class, sat at my desk, and arranged my things. The bell rang for class and the teacher took attendance, quieted everyone down, then took a long pause. After a deep breath, he informed us airliners had crashed into the World Trade Center, the twin towers. He didn’t know how it happened, why, or who was hurt, just that we were being released from school early that day. I felt fear. Surely this was an accident.

I don’t remember much about the rest of that day other than football practice that evening. Our assistant coach was a police officer and former airman. We huddled after practice and said prayers for the victims and first responders, including the Lord’s Prayer. Years later, as an engineering student, I would become an atheist. I’d look back and roll my eyes at the Lord’s Prayer and how useless it was for solving problems. It would take years of failure, anger, and grief before I understood why we’re admonished to seek forgiveness, and why we should work to forgive those who have harmed us. Can we admit when we’re wrong and trust others after they see their mistakes?

I started paying attention to news that day. Before the attacks, I had never felt a sickening fear of mortality. I’d seen violence and death in movies, TV shows, video games. I knew about wars and atrocities from history class, but I’d never felt a horror that changed my worldview like 9/11. I had never felt deeply disturbed like I did watching the collapsing towers, people running in terror through the streets, and victims leaping from the burning towers knowing death awaited below. Less than two years later, I watched footage of the first airstrikes in Iraq. These events, the long wars that followed, and subsequent immersion into politics would shape my young adult life: feelings of fear, frustration, and cynicism toward humanity.

Fast-forward twenty years. I’m writing this essay a year and a half into the COVID pandemic. Like terrorism, the pandemic seems to have permanently changed how we live: working from home, indoor masks, social distancing, vaccinations. The beginning of the pandemic feels almost as long ago now as 9/11. It was a normal day of programming, then one email from the CEO and I was loading equipment into boxes to start working from home. Everything closed. Supermarkets had lines down the block as shelves emptied completely. Friends lost their jobs, businesses, health coverage, families. Homeless people were sleeping on the steps of my apartment building. I was angry at the lockdowns and disruption of normal life. Now, I regret my frustration and insensitivity as everyone’s life was turned upside-down in early 2020.

There were the George Floyd protests last year. Helicopters circled overhead as protestors blocked the freeway and smashed car windows a few blocks from my apartment. We were put on curfew. Earlier this year, rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, urged on by a sitting United States president. Israel launched airstrikes on Gaza following riots and rocket attacks earlier this summer. On the other side of the world, in what appears to be a growing ideological clash, China grows increasingly aggressive toward Taiwan following the Hong Kong protests. Today, my newsfeed is replete with coverage of the botched U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, which spurred me to write this essay.

In my middle school history class, a picture on the wall read something we’ve all heard, “those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it.” I understood what those words meant twenty years ago. I didn’t feel the grief and frustration that I do today. Our parents, grandparents, and ancestors survived senseless suffering. They lived through world wars, revolutions, genocide, famine, brutal cultures and regimes. They warned us how evil takes hold, how it disguises itself with justification as it takes control of us. We often fail to see our bad ideas and the suffering we inflict on others unless we’ve experienced the suffering ourselves. Or, we see it too late, after we’ve witnessed the horrifying outcomes of our behavior. Discerning right and wrong action is one of the great difficulties of life. As a guide, we should start by working to see each other as trusted and respected family, people we care for and wouldn’t hurt. People need to know we want the best for them, and we need to know they want the same for us.

I picked up my 2x4s and the cashier walked with me to get the door. He had moved on from 9/11 to the current state of political discourse, lamenting how divided our politics have become. As he talked, we passed other shoppers. There was a couple with two kids who could have been my brother and me twenty years ago. I wondered how the pandemic had disrupted their schooling and social lives during these formative years. I wondered how much of today’s news they knew about. I hoped a day never comes when today’s events turn into news about an attack like 9/11, that they won’t see horror, grow fatigued and cynical about humanity after years of protracted conflict. They have too many opportunities. I loaded the 2x4s into the hatch of my car and the cashier told me to to have a good one. Maybe twenty years from now I’ll be a better carpenter, I won’t have so much hardness and distance on my face. Maybe a youngster will tell me I’ve been doing carpentry longer than he or she’s been alive, and I’ll grin with amusement. On the anniversary of 9/11, I’ll be glad at how far we’ve come.