I remember being only a kid in middle school when I first started hearing my classmates talk about politics. Names like Obama, McCain, Biden, and even Hillary were thrown around constantly. I deemed it a little silly at the time considering most people were just regurgitating whatever their parents believed. But in the haystack of controversy, I still found the needle. This being how cool it was that my older sister's first ever election was one of such history and prominence. It made me excited for her and excited for my future "adult" self. The act of voting was and still is considered an act of participation and during that time she was participating in what was seen as history. I dreamed of that being me one day.

Fast forward to today where I'm laughing at memes of our current candidates and their shenanigans on my Twitter feed. I understand that as we get older a lot of our perfect bubbles get popped but this one hurt a little bit. Sure, we are able to make jokes about basically anything nowadays thanks to social media, but I know I'm not alone when it comes to being disappointed in my first presidential election. What I thought would be interesting discussions about the candidates turned out to be the act of choosing a side and hating whoever didn't. What I thought would be debates full of what the president could do for America turned out to be the candidates vaguely mentioning what they will do for the people and mostly slandering the other person. What I thought were supposed to be the best people there could be running for president actually turned out to be people we are forced to accept the major wrongdoings of because they both have so many. What I thought was wrong.

So, this isn't 12-year-old Amber's idea of an election. Truthfully she didn't know much at the time anyways. Now that I am 19-year-old Amber and going through this right of passage with so many other young adults, I can't help but notice certain aspects I am proud of too. As a generation, we have become so passionate about voting. We encourage each other through those same social media accounts and make an effort to remind whoever we can to vote. This goes hand in hand with us being active members. We are very invested in everything pertaining to the election, from the debates to their personal lives we always pay attention. We even exhaust our options and look into third-party candidates like Gary Johnson. We are the one thing I am proud of during this election because I know that whatever the outcome we all fought for what we truly wanted. November 8 will still go down in history for me.