Ten years later

I'm not entirely sure where I want to go with this post, so I'm going to write, and hope it goes somewhere.  But if it seems scattered it's because I'm having a hard time tonight in focusing my thoughts in one direction.

It's September 10, 2011 today.  Ten years ago, the world was normal.  Ten years ago...

You know, in the grand scheme of things, ten years isn't really that long.  Ten years ago I was in college for the fourth time (that time I was successful in graduating!).  I was 25 years old.  I hadn't yet met my husband.  I hadn't yet had my kids.  Hadn't yet come out of the closet I'd been in for 10 years, the one that I kept myself in to hide the fact that I believed in Islam, was Muslim already, though hadn't yet taken shahadah.  The world hadn't yet changed.

Ten years ago tomorrow - September 11, 2011 - the world changed.  The world that I grew up in effectively ended.  The world that my children grow up in now is not  the world that I grew up in.  My kids will never know a world where to travel by airplane is to be invasively searched.  And while right now they have no problems - are proud - to say "I'm Muslim" as they grow older I am afraid they will learn to hide it because there are people in this world that believe all Muslims are to blame for the horror of September 11, 2001, even though Muslims also died.

Did you know the first baby born after 9/11 was the son of a Muslim who was killed at work in the World Trade Center?  I didn't.  I read an article on him and his family - his mother and his sister - on cnn.com.  Then I made the mistake of reading the comments afterwards.  It was an article on a little boy.  And people said things like how dare they feature a Muslim?  Didn't they know that it was "the Muslims" that caused this.  That to actually say that the first 9/11 baby was a Muslim was horrible.  It was an article on a little boy.  And his family who left NYC after 9/11 because of the vile abuse that was yelled at his mother and then five year old sister in the days afterwards, even as they also lost their husband, their father, their breadwinner.  They moved to Oklahoma and the widow barely leaves her home anymore.

It makes me sad that there are people that believe that all Muslims supported this horror.  It makes me sad that they blame all Muslims for this.  It makes me sad that there are Muslims that thought this was a good idea and that there are still a subset of Muslims that act like this was a deserved thing when it wasn't.

It frustrates me that there are these beliefs on both sides.  We have so much to learn from each other.  It frustrates me that there are times that I am afraid to wear my headscarf, but I work through that fear and know that their issues with me in my headscarf are their issues, not mine.  Their issues that they need to deal with, not me.

My prayer for this world is one that we can live in peace.  My fear for this world is that those trucks that have been stolen, that chatter that the FBI, CIA and Homeland Security have been listening to will come true.  And I'm scared that once again, all Muslims will be blamed for the actions of a radical, insane, few.