Cindy Lange-Kubick: As we lived 10 more years

We were transfixed. We were united.

The world changed. The world stayed the same. Life went on.

We got older.

We changed jobs. We bought houses and traded cars and shopped for groceries and forgot to get milk.

We went back to school. We changed careers. We got married. We had children. We didn't have children. We had parties, we had headaches, we had second thoughts.

We complained about the neighbor's dog, about the price of gas, about the price of cable. We argued about the price of freedom.

We opposed the war, we supported the war, we read about the war, we protested the war, we got bored with the war, we paid for the war. We argued.

About the war. About politicians and taxes and who was unfairly kicked off "Dancing with the Stars."

We re-elected a president. We elected another president.

We talked about God, about country, about terrorism, about enemies, about suitcase bombs, about fundamentalism, about fanatics. We talked about football, about fashion, about weather, about normal.

We believed in things we never thought possible. Airplanes plowing into buildings, buildings falling, the Pentagon on fire. We learned the names Monte Hord, Julie Geis, Larry Getzfred, Jennifer Dorsey Howley, Leonard Castrianno.

We thought we would never laugh again. We made jokes. We made heroes. Pat Tillman died; 8,873 other American soldiers died. Christopher Swisher died, Matt Henderson died, Patrick Hamburger died. In all, 70 people with Nebraska ties died in the war that followed 9/11.

We talked about sacrifice. Some people sacrificed.

We hated Fred Phelps and we loved the Patriot Guard, and there were hurricanes and tsunamis and earthquakes and the Rapture did not come.

We got the flu, we lost our attention spans, we forgot about anthrax.

Our property taxes went up and so did the temperature of the planet.

We wrote letters to the editor, we became apathetic, we became involved, we became born again, we became vegan.

Ronald Reagan died, Anna Nicole Smith died, Marlon Brando died, Michael Jackson died.

Common sense died, civility died, the Dow died. We lost our jobs, we lost our homes, we lost half our 401(k)s.

We watched "Oprah." We watched "The Daily Show." Someone declared irony was dead. We believed it. Then we found Twitter.

We had nightmares, we waved flags, we saw buildings burning in our sleep. We were happy, sad, angry, petty, mean-spirited, humble, human.

We watched Nancy Grace. We watched the Academy Awards. We watched the twin towers fall over and over.

We justified torture, we rediscovered vinyl, we became hipsters, we became oldsters.

We had 9/11 hindsight.

We became entranced by Britney Spears shaving her head and with Charlie Sheen yelling "Winning!" And 35,000 people died in car accidents year after year. And 500,000 died of cancer, and they were old and young and in-between, and they were mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers and sons and daughters.

And they were mourned and buried and remembered.

And someone spotted Lady Gaga downtown. And Nebraska went 11-2 and 5-6 and 9-5.

We got Cash for Clunkers. We captured Sadaam Hussein and we killed Osama bin Laden and the president produced his birth certificate. Six billion people got cellphones. Egypt found freedom on Facebook.

We had tea parties, we had a Tea Party. We were shot in shopping malls and at groceries stores and by snipers in the parking lots of Home Depot.

We took our shoes off in airports.

We walked barefoot on beaches and appreciated spring and scooped snow.

We felt vulnerable. We colored our hair and bought new drapes and plastered our children's names on the back ends of our SUVs. We drove Hummers. We drove hybrids.

We made mistakes.

We wept. We rejoiced. We muddled through. We planted gardens and cleaned our gutters and went to weddings and christenings and graduations and watched movies that came in the mail.

We swore we would never forget and then most of us forgot exactly what that meant.

As we lived 10 more years.