One of the strangest phrases I've ever had to hear was "9/11 Kid." I grew up without a father, I was raised by a single mother, and yes, my Dad was killed on September 11th. However, I never thought of myself as a 9/11 kid. It is funny to me because when someone's mother dies of breast cancer, they are not known as a "breast cancer kid." It sounds weird doesn't it?

Even stranger are the things that us 9/11 kids struggle with on a daily basis. There are 3,051 of us. The majority of us are now in college, the most unique experience of our lives thus far. We are not alone, considering how many of us there are, yet every 9/11 we somehow feel alone.

I believe this is because we've never seen September 12th. I think I can speak for my group as a whole when a person loses someone close to them, they have time to grieve. They have a community of people holding them up. However, for us, we never had time to grieve. We lost our parents, and that fact was broadcasted on television sets around the world. Every year, there are news specials about how tremendous our losses were, how insane it is that it has been so long. At least once a week, 9/11 somehow is mentioned in every one of my classes, because it truly did and will continually change the world.

While I am not bitter, I promise, the concept is just crazy to me. Trust me, I love a good dead dad joke (don't we all?). I mean look at Pete Davidson, he is completely killing the dead dad joke game. With that being said, you rarely see an article about Pete without mentioning that he lost his father on 9/11. We just cannot get rid of the "9/11 kid" persona. Despite the all too common September 11th publicity, even 14 years later, we are still lacking some sort of happy medium. It is crazy how little people understand our side. An "ordinary" death has such a small number of people grieving. But us 9/11 kids do not get to grieve our parent's death normally. We grieve as a whole, and our nation grieves with us. Our process is not, and never will be a uniform one.

One of the biggest struggles we've had to encounter is balancing our emotions versus understanding everyone else's. On twitter once every year, I scroll down and see the burning building's my father was killed in. On Facebook, I cannot avoid the pictures of planes on fire, crashing into the pentagon. My all time favorite, the conspiracy theories. We have been forced to find the balance between understanding that people have a right to their opinion and that we have a right to mourn.

Seriously? Rethink9/11... I'm laughing so hard. What about RethinkYourFacebookPost?

This is not to complain, mostly just to inform. To give you, a reader, an inside peak on what is like to live the life of a 9/11 kid. It is all we know, all we have known, and unfortunately, all we will ever know. So, understand we are more than people who lost our parents on September 11th, 2001. Know that with every September that passes, we are still grieving. Most importantly, comprehend that what has happened to us in our past has 100% made us stronger, but has not made us a publicity stunt for the benefit of others.

I love and miss you, Dad. May we never forget the lives lost that day, and all the 9/11 kids like me who are working their butts off to be more than that title.