As a child growing up in Manhattan, I was always keenly aware of what 9/11 was, and subconsciously felt connected to it. Two years old when it occurred, I don’t remember the day specifically, but rather the many stories I was told in the years following, and the memories I have accumulated from each annual day of commemoration in the fifteen years since.

School on 9/11 was always characterized by moments of silence and lessons on what the day signified. Even in elementary school, my peers and I were completely conscious of what had occurred in 2001. We viewed images of the exploding and collapsing towers with horror, always, but with an intense familiarity and emotional connection as well.

But for New Yorkers, 9/11 goes beyond learning about it once a year in school and listening to names of alumni over a loudspeaker. We don’t just know 9/11 as an attack on our nation, a threat to national security, or the true start of the massive conflict that pervades our lives to this day; it’s not just the frightening wake-up call that has altered our lives every time we enter an airport, or hear a plane flying above us, or even the direct attack on the 22.82 square miles we call our home that has destroyed notions of safety and immunity. Those are just abstract concepts, vague feelings of pain, sympathy, or fear that many people experience (and rightfully so). But in New York City, everyone feels, and was, a part of 9/11 – everyone has their own story.

What I remember most about 9/11 is talking with my friends and family each year and hearing about not a historical event, but about personal ties to it – individual recollections and permanent impacts that day has had on the lives of their families, their friends, themselves. I am incredibly lucky that no family or friends were harmed in the attacks. But no New Yorker came out of that day unscathed. I, like many other people, have a story.

When the planes hit, my dad was in New Jersey, at his law office, but my mom and I were in the city. Immediately concerned about the safety of my Upper West Side apartment, my parents called my grandfather to drive in from Westchester and take us out of the city. While I don’t remember this, I’ve heard it so many times it feels like I do. My uncle, working within blocks of the World Trade Center, was scheduled to be at breakfast in Windows on the World – the restaurant located on the 107^th floor of the North Tower, one of the locations where no one survived – when the planes hit, but was late due to an unexpected business call. He watched the planes strike the towers from his office window.

The remarkable thing about reliving 9/11 in New York City is that it’s not just a day of remembrance; it’s a day of sharing stories, marveling in awe at the seemed incredible luck or divine force that caused people to adjust their daily routines, leading them away from the towers, the remarkable heroism of firefighters, police, and civilians alike, and the painful losses that are still mourned for and felt deeply today.

On September 11^th, 2001, many of my friends had their first day of preschool, so their parents who worked in the World Trade Center were late for work or skipped the day, getting them ready and taking them to school. One of my friends cried about feeling sick all morning, making her mother late for work. By the time she arrived to the towers, the first tower had already been hit, and a cop yelled for her to run. Another friend’s first memory is of, at age three, turning off the television when her father, who had left his job located in the Twin Towers a few months prior, sat in their living room, watching news coverage of his friends and colleagues that were now victims of the terror. A beloved secretary in my elementary school office had a firefighter son who was on duty when the attacks occurred. After going in to rescue victims and emerging safely from the wreckage, he called his mother to tell her he was alive – and then went back in to save more people, never coming back out. I went to middle school with the girl whose father took the iconic photo, “The Falling Man.”

Every year, I feel the emotions that come with these experiences, even and especially those that were not mine. I hear new stories, and the day becomes increasingly vivid, increasingly significant. I am suddenly unified with an entire city of people who are a piece of that history.

This year was my first 9/11 outside of New York City, and if I hadn’t looked at the date or scrolled through my Facebook feed, I wouldn’t have known. In Michigan, today was a normal day, void of the moments of silence and recounts from people who experienced it firsthand and were heavily impacted by it that I am accustomed to. My entire life, I have been acutely conscious of the pain and suffering this day caused and the subsequent battle we still continue to fight against terror every day, and I have spent this day each year surrounded by others who experience the day in a very real, very personal, very visceral way. On 9/11 in New York, everyone and everything is a little duller, and their hearts are a little heavier. Today at the University of Michigan, it was the first day of Panhellenic Recruitment for some, or just a routine Sunday for others.

I am not by any means trying to assert that people outside of New York City are ignorant, or contrarily, unentitled to feel sadness regarding 9/11. Tragedies occur, but life undoubtedly does, and should, go on, and I’m sure that there are plenty of people who do experience September 11^th in the way that virtually all city kids do, and there are many people around the country and world who were somehow part of the tragedy of that day. But I grew up in an environment where almost every single person felt September 11^th on a very personal level, with very real connections to it – although I didn’t realize that until now. In a way, 9/11 is unifying in New York City: instead of being the ‘melting pot,’ the quintessential picture of diversity and difference, we share an identity, a connection, and a collective experience. But as a college freshman who just moved from the so-called center of the world – and the only home I have ever known – to a classic, movie-like college campus in what, to me, can hardly be defined as a city, experiencing this day in such a different way really struck a chord. Feeling so removed and distant, surrounded by many who didn’t even realize what day it was, or only know 9/11 as a remote, sad concept, made me think a little more about the uniqueness of where I’m from and the special experience it’s given me, and it made me miss New York City a little more.