In 2000, I was two years old. That was the first of five election days that have come to pass in my lifetime. I don’t remember much from that first election day sixteen years ago, nor does the one four years later bring any specific memories to mind. These were life-altering elections to many, and yet they had no noticeable effect on my life—not noticeable to me anyway.

By the time 2008 rolled around, I was in fifth grade and much more aware of the politics in my life than I had been previously. At the time I was enrolled in a course entitled “World Views” where we discussed the election whose results would inevitably make history. However, my knowledge of the impact of this first Tuesday of November was only relative compared to my knowledge of the past. I still couldn’t grasp the impact voting had, simply because I was so far removed from it. I was ten years old my school did not serve as a polling place—meaning I had to go to school on election day. This day meant so much to some people, but it had a relatively small impact to me. My only connection to the election, outside of other people’s opinions I heard in class, was what I heard from my parents. Though maybe a little more willing to learn about my country’s government than before, my chief concerns surrounding the election were rather petty, which was likely understandable for my age. I wanted to know who my parents and my teachers were voting for. I wanted to know whose votes agreed with one another’s and whose votes would cancel each other’s out. And after caring about all of this for weeks leading up to election day, once it came and our nation’s new president-elect was named, I learned this future leader’s name and face, and moved on.

2012—now I’m a freshman in high school and already counting down the days until the next election. I found it so cool that my brother, who is three years older than I am, and I would be voting for the first time in a national election on the same day, four years in the future. Again I was in a class where we actively talked about the election, and while I followed along in lectures, I still couldn’t really offer my own views for I did not yet understand what they entailed. What I could do was take in all the facts mingled with opinions of the peers and teachers around me. That year we did have the day off from school for the election; the effect of this was that it made the day more memorable to me. In the last week of October I realized we didn’t have school the next Tuesday, I asked why, then I celebrated. I was celebrating the fact that I could put my homework off one day and have a break in the middle of a school week. I was not celebrating the nation we live in where every citizen has the opportunity to express their voice through a ballot cast once every four years for the leader of our country. I stayed up to watch the election that evening, having had no school that day, but there wasn’t very much to see. I went to bed worry-free, knowing that the people I count on in my life had voted for the right person. Because if it wasn’t the right person, how would they have gotten so far as to become president?

It is now 2016. About a month ago, I got to vote in my first general election for the President of the United States. I had the day off from classes, so I was able to go home the night before. My brother slept over too, and the next morning when we woke up, my mom, my brother, and I drove to the polls together, about five minutes down the road from my house. We saw neighbors in the parking lot, greeted friends working the polls, and felt immediately enveloped in this new and exciting atmosphere exclusive to Americans who were eighteen years and older. I smiled at the friendly workers as I made my way into the place where I could make a difference, and I swear some of them were more excited than I was to see members of my generation out early to seize their rights and assert their voice. In the booth, I checked the options I’d selected once, twice, three times to be sure, before hitting the big green “Vote” button. I couldn’t help smiling when I left, knowing that no matter what happened that night, and even well into the next morning, I had done my part. Nothing could take away the vote I submitted, no result could ever make it void. Now I can look back on all my election days of the past and know that with each one comes new memories, new stories, and new impacts that I may or not be prepared to handle. But prepared or not, I am a part of the stories now, and I plan to stay active in this role for as long as I am able.

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