In terms of high ranking nights in the US, midterm election night tends to rank pretty low on the excitement scale. It’s never as exciting as the presidential election and is generally not considered to be something that is worth keeping track of. However, this past midterm election night you could cut the tension in the air with a knife. There was a palpable feeling of importance that was placed on the night. In the dining room where the real-time results were being given by CNN, I saw people going from being consumed with studying to aptly watching the screen engrossed in democracy at work. I myself was trying to keep up with the polls leading up to election-day to the best of my abilities. My home state was the site of an intense battle for the Senate, and there were extensive hopes of changing what appears to be a deeply red state to blue. Unfortunately, this did not happen but there was at least one change that occurred that I observed and had a direct impact on me personally. I noticed how the midterms changed the position of some of my more politically apathetic friends to caring about politics. The past two years seems to have woken them up and made them realize in the most extreme of ways that politics do affect them and whether they participate or not in the process does not change if the laws passed influence their lives. This gave me a sense of hope that is rare these days, and while nothing in this world is certain it’s nice to have a little hope to accompany the journey through the world.