I’ve been flying since I was 2 years old.

I’m originally from Baltimore but had to travel a minimum of two or three times a year with my sister bicoastally when our parents were no longer together.

I looked forward to the airline meals, although there was one year with a questionable gray meatloaf. New people from all over the country with interesting professions sparked my curiosity.

I can’t say I was ever afraid to fly, but the events of Sept. 11, 2001, forever shattered my innocence, my naive thinking that flying was just getting from Point A to Point B. I had no choice but to navigate the myriad ways airports adopted new, harsher security measures that make flying harder.

Now, in my 30s with a fuller understanding of what happened the day when nearly 3,000 people died after four airplanes were hijacked, I still accept the extra precautions at the airport.

I miss some of the pre-9/11 freedoms, but I can’t help but feel safer with what’s in place even if it means getting to the airport two hours before my flight.

I was in fourth grade when Sept. 11 obliterated our nation’s sense of safety. My siblings and I huddled inside our den in Los Angeles when we saw the second plane hit the tower in the World Trade Center.

I didn’t understand what happened. But by the way my mom, who was a police officer at the time, stared blankly at the television screen, I knew answers wouldn’t be immediate.

When I went back to the airport for the first time, solutions, many of them onerous, seemed to be in full swing. Baltimore-Washington International Airport was the first federalized airport in the country by 2002, ushering in the Transportation Security Administration. TSA became a shorthand for all of us who endured long lines, no filled water bottles, routine pat-downs and, at times, racial and ethnic profiling.

Some younger travelers might look at me confused if I talk about, before 9/11, getting to the airport right before a flight and making it. Or that my dad would be waiting for us at the gate when we arrived and walked us there when our trip was over.

The gate hugs and kisses, welcoming or farewells, were always a pivotal part of the trip. I could never get to the end of the jet bridge fast enough to see my dad grinning after not laying eyes on us for months.

I have a son who’s close to the age I was when I started flying, and he’ll know nothing about how things were before.

He’s younger than TSA, which has more than a million followers on Instagram and often jokingly posts about items people tried to take in carry-on bags.

Benét Wilson, a mentor to me and an aviation journalist for 26 years, remembers how post 9/11 security agents were very particular about metals in purses and Black women’s natural hair being thoroughly checked. Today, Wilson, who took her first flight in 1971, thinks there’s room for reassessing.

“9/11 literally changed the way that we fly on airplanes, and I think that some of it was for the good and some of it we should be rethinking how we are doing airport security now,” said Wilson, who mentioned reconsidering requirements to limit the amount of liquids in carry-on bags as a good starting point.

The first time a flight attendant led me and my sister, who were minors at the time, from our gate to Dad, I figured he was late or he requested the assistance. Outside of BWI or Los Angeles International Airport, all seemed normal, so I didn’t harp on it.

For Beth Rowan, a Maryland-based travel adviser who once lived in New York, it was the shocks well outside the airport, including law enforcement officials walking inside Penn Station with machine guns. Rowan added she also misses the quaint days when a passenger could stick their head in the cockpit to take a peek at the view.

“Planes changed from being maybe a little risk to being a weapon, and that change was significant to us psychologically,” said Rowan, who used to live in a small town outside New York that lost nearly 10 people during 9/11.

Only recently has there been a slight rollback on security changes, including a new policy ending the need to take off shoes and suggestions that restrictions on liquids in carry-on bags could be changed too.

By the time people read this, I’ll likely be on a flight, traveling to a wedding on the West Coast. The security checkpoint may be slowed and people, including myself, might have their belongings pulled and checked again.

But I won’t mind. I’ll never forget the reason the precautions are needed.

This story has been updated to correct the number of airplanes involved on 9/11.