I stuck to CNN on election night, grateful for their somewhat exaggerated caution and their constant disclaimers. As Fox News called the election for George W. Bush, CNN tentatively turned Ohio a "too close to call" green . I watched the network for more than five hours, giving up around three in the morning. Sometime after midnight, one of the commentators wondered aloud whether the youth of America, if they were to lose after working so hard to simply care, would remain active or return to apathy. A few hours later, the same commentator announced that the youth of America barely cared after all. It was around this time that I began to cry, in bitter disappointment, as they announced that the "youth explosion" was nothing more than hype.

I have to admit that all I did this election season was vote. More anti-Bush than pro-Kerry, I didn't knock on doors or make phone calls because I felt I would have trouble campaigning for a candidate I didn't fully support. I did vote, and made sure my friends were voting, though the majority of us live in blue states. I've been a regular activist in the past, always struggling with the apathy of the Amherst campus, so I was surprised but pleased to see the student body sparked by the election. For some reason, though, hearing we didn't make a difference, that our votes barely mattered, didn't surprise me at all. I was disappointed, and I felt that I should have known better. 

The media has slowly and quietly amended their position on the youth vote in the past week. Initially, they reported that young people, generally considered ages 18-29, the group notorious for electoral apathy, voted in the same proportions as in the last election. This is true; young voters still made up a relatively small 17 percent of the overall electorate, but there was a significant increase in the actual numbers of voters in every age group. A total of 21 million young people voted, 4.6 million more than in the 2000 presidential election. The majority of groups that courted the youth vote were pro-Kerry, but the numbers show that young is not synonymous with liberal. According to the Circle Group, 55 percent voted for Kerry while 44 percent voted for Bush.

We're being handed a variety of messages right now. The media is intentionally downplaying the influence of the youth vote, which worries youth voter registration groups like Rock the Vote. They fear that new voters, hearing that they didn't affect the election in any way, will be turned off from voting. Some of my e-mail newsletters have tried too hard to balance the mainstream media's negative attention by exaggerating the effect of our votes. In reality, we didn't matter much at all. We were almost evenly split, and we didn't have the numbers on the Kerry side to truly make the difference. 

This presidency may define our lives. The majority of us will graduate from college at some point during Bush's second term, and his policies in all areas will determine what kind of life we lead: our job opportunities, our level of safety and our civil liberties, at the very least. If every generation is defined by its most trying times, wars and social upheaval and economic extremes, then will we be defined as the generation that comes of age as Bush reorders the world? What does this mean for us? What will it mean when we are forced to step out from the safety net of academia into what seems to be a new America in the works?

I did cry at two in the morning on Nov. 3, when CNN began to look desperately for a way for Kerry to win Ohio. I cried out of disappointment, out of worry and perhaps out of fear.  I fear a second Bush term, at least two years of decisions without the threat of looming elections and with control of all three branches of the government. I fear the Supreme Court he will create, the amendments he'll work to pass and the continuation of the secrecy that has marked his first term. I fear the widening economic gap. I fear the war in Iraq, and all other wars to come. I fear the backdoor draft, the discrepancies between who is running this war and who is fighting in it. I fear another terrorist attack and further backlash against Muslims and Arab-Americans. I especially fear losing more civil liberties. Most importantly, I fear the divisions that have polarized the country, and how easy it is to envision four years with little regard for the blue states. We clearly didn't have the numbers to fight back. Why should he show us any interest?

My e-mail newsletters are bombarding me with a steely but optimistic,"We gave it our best.  Let's not give up the fight." I've clicked "delete" again and again; I don't need to hear that right now. On Nov. 3, I sat in Valentine and realized that all I wanted to do was give up the fight. I'm tired of fighting with no results. It sometimes seems that all our liberal activism just widens the gap between us and the red states. 

I think that right now, it's okay to feel this way. I doubt a sunny "Let's keep fighting!" will lead many to do so at this point.What's more important is that we think about the next four years in the context of our lives, what it means to each of us individually and as a generation. There may not have been a youth explosion.We didn't overtake the election.We didn't change the fates of Americans on a whole. So let's just stick to our own lives, which will undoubtably be shaped by the next four years.We are all Americans, faced with the question of what that means.What America will we inherit? We don't need immediate action or even immediate answers.We only need to think about what this election means to us. If we realize what's at stake, we take the first step.We, in some tiny way, turn America in our direction. That direction, whatever it is, will define us.