11

This is less the 11th anniversary of 9/11, than the 10th anniversary of one year later.

Every day between that Tuesday and one year later, we expected that the follow up was coming. Surely Al Qaeda hadn't put all this effort into a single day - certainly, another one must be on the way? And there was the occasional possibility - Flight 587, the anthrax attacks, the Beltway sniper. None were as horrific, as terrible, as we expected. The entry into war in Afghanistan was mild enough, for most Americans, and so it went for that whole year.

When the one-year anniversary happened, it was like crossing a finish line. There were commemorations, retrospectives, but mostly a chance to put an endpoint on what had happened. And here we are again, with a chance to move forward. One that, maybe, we will accept.