September always hurts me. I don’t think there will ever be a time in my life that September won’t send me into tears at any moment.

When the song by Green Day comes on, “Wake Me Up When September Ends,” forget it. I'm a puddle of mascara.

September 4^th 2010 - my best friend lost her father to cancer. The ache I carry for her is something I cannot describe, given that I have no idea what that kind of grief even begins to amount to. I cannot fathom the pain in such an extreme extent that I weep over the thought of it, every time. Chris Bucher was an incredible, brilliant, outgoing, and wonderful friend and father, and the loss of someone that important to the world and to his family is indescribable. Somehow, he has the strongest family I've ever met and they teach me resilience every single day.

September 13^th 2007 – the day my high school class lost a classmate, a peer, and huge a light in the world. I had no idea what loss was, especially a loss of someone my age, and especially a loss of a sweet face I saw all the time. Megan was the smallest warrior with the largest laugh I have ever encountered. She was full of life and love and so much sparkle that I still have a pair of heels she bedazzled for me. Her illness was a secret to the majority our classmates, but that didn’t stop hundreds of my high school from attending her service. The entire church was so packed that I watched the service on a TV in the overflow room next door, standing against a wall between my elementary school PE teacher and my current high school principal, crying in a way I never have before.

The biggest hole in my heart of all is that September morning when every American’s heart broke out of their chest. Everyone knows where they were, and what they were doing that day. We all have our stories to tell of exactly what we were doing, and how we found out. That kind of unity always brings me to my knees. Ask any of my friends and they will tell you what an absolutely horrible memory I have. I cannot recall one specific day out of any of my time in elementary school or middle school, so the fact that I remember hour by hour what happened that specific day, only reiterates the absolute magnitude of what was unfolding.

September 11^th, 2001 I was only in 4^th grade. Duncan Jones left first, his mother came to our door with red, puffy eyes, letting our teacher know he needed to leave for a dentist appointment. None of us thought anything of it, until it kept happening. Then my mom picked up my brother, Austin Campbell and I, in my grandparent’s car, and that is the second I knew something was not right.

I stood 4 inches from our TV watching it happen on the news over and over, as my little 4^th grade heart wept, and here I am 15 years later still crying the same way.

15 years later, I'm a New Yorker. I couldn’t have imagined that I would ever live in NYC when my 4^th grade heart was breaking, I wouldn't have even imagined it a year ago, and here I am. New York was always something big, huge and overwhelming. Now that I have been living here, I feel like the ambassador of the city, trying to recruit anyone and everyone to either make the move or visit.

I was working at the Time Inc. building for a few months which is directly below the Freedom Tower on the Hudson River. I crossed Ground Zero every single day in my commute to and from work and there was absolutely never a day that I wasn’t riveted, moved to tears, or covered in chills. Sometimes when the wind blows too hard, the foundation pools will whip water up over the sides and bless you with their spray.

Did you know there is a tree on Ground Zero that looks different than the rest? It is the only tree that has a fence around it, but it also is the only tree that has curled and bent branches. It is the only tree that survived the buildings collapse that day. It was badly burned, so they removed it, took care of it, and returned it to its original home. It is called the Survivor Tree, and when I looked it up after seeing it, I was incredibly moved by what it stands for now.

I watched hundreds of tourists from all over the world walk around in absolute awe, some taking pictures, some walking silently, and some weeping. I watched a French woman exit the museum one day where she turned to her friend and said, “I see why there aren’t any Americans here, they feel this pain every day, and I'm just experiencing it now for the first time…” That sent chills up my spine. I have never thought of it that way before.

I have a terrible habit of asking people that I encounter how it all unfolded for them, but every story is differently recounted and important. I understand the vastness and the magnitude of the amount of lives that were impacted that day, but the magnitude changes more and more as individual stories of people who were in the city that day are told. Almost 8 million people commute to New York City daily, and I catch myself a lot on my commute to work every morning, imagining the panic, the sirens and the confusion to just get the hell off of the island in any way that they could. It hurts me. I cannot deny how much it always hurts me.

It's absolutely immaculate, though, to go out at night and see a huge beam of light at the point of Manhattan, reaching heaven, letting everyone who was lost that day know that we're still down here, missing them. It's absolutely immaculate to be a part of a country who could unify in something so out of our control, something that hurts every American in the same deep way, and rebuild. The way that they have rebuilt is unbelievable. I am reminded everyday - on the back of trucks, on business windows, on hard hats, helmets, firetrucks, police cruisers - of 9/11, with stickers, decals, murals, and ribbons. It isn’t just one day of them to remember. New Yorkers remember every single day.

15 years later, and I'm so lucky to be an American, a New York resident, and to be a part of a community who sobbed, wiped their eyes, rolled up their sleeves, and got to doing absolutely anything that they could, and everything that they can to not ever forget that day. They did everything that they can to keep getting stronger.

Tonight I will go stand by the Hudson River, look up at the two beams of light, and remember that day and how far we have come. God Bless America. God Bless our first responders. God Bless our heroes. God bless our fallen. Despite what social media says, we are so blessed to be Americans, and I would die for that any day.