In the fall of 2008, I was a high school student. By all outward appearances, life should have felt simple: class schedules, teenage distractions, college brochures arriving in the mail. But I remember a different sensation. A slow, quiet panic crept into conversations at the dinner table. Classmates who used to brag about new video games or summer plans began whispering about their parents losing jobs. Distant cousins moved back in with grandparents. And even in my young, largely insulated world, I could feel the walls of certainty shaking.