I feel cheated out of my passion to promote change and progress.

I was meant to be a part of this big pivotal part of history, leading through the 2016 election, the part where we all stop being ignorant and look around and see that we’re hurting each other, and that we are the means to our own suffering, and once and for all, a society could be moving towards peace, one mind at a time.

New progressive factors were changing it. I witnessed it in my adolescence, practically building up to boost me onto this platform of a new world, a new livelihood, by the age of 18, perfectly in time with my first vote. And as I’ve been placed on this pedestal, I think back on our first African American president and the day, June 26, 2015, that love won and the world opened their hearts and minds to sexuality and gender expression, and how the women before me, since the 19th century, pushed for what seemed like radical change for their own human rights- and in my reminiscence, suddenly this pedestal has been snatched out from under me and I’m now knocked onto the ground, knowing not what to do other than sit there bewildered – bewildered by the false hope of change that was so real to me.

The millennial discussion was always so hopeful, and small-chance numbers became my push because I knew it was for the right thing. But now, none of this feels right. It feels off.

It’s true, the people were fed up with the disdain for the order we are under, but were not incited with love like our movement had.

Instead a man incited fear into the hearts and the minds of dedicated people.

And fear turned out on this historic day, a Tuesday like no other.

So here, we have made this sought-after change, but did you read the fine print?

Do you know what you signed up for?

Why did #LoveAlwaysWins and #LoveTrumpsHate turn into #MakeAmericaGreatAgain, just when I actually thought it was finally beginning to be a little great.

The people may have chose this, but how is it that they are still likely the two most disliked candidates in U.S. history? How did we come to this conclusion in the first place if this is democracy?

The social media platform was embraced by both sides to reach out to young and minority votes, as they did in 2008 and 2012, and we’ve heard you, but you’ve only upset us. By using this platform to preach racism, sexism, and misinformation.

My ballot isn’t even a multiple choice quiz, as it says the answers are between A and B when I was so sure that C was the answer. But I’m certainly not the one who cheated on this quiz, rather it is the system that created it, that has cheated me.

But see, the funny thing is, in the end, we both failed.

So we come to this denouement where the young turn-of-centuries are feeling lost and then we can barely dare to ask the question:

“So… What happens next?”