For the first time in eight years, my country, the United States, has changed the world for the better.
We elected Barack Obama to be our 44th president.
For a country with a tortured racial history, we decided that race was irrelevant.
I will go to bed tonight, election night, knowing I will wake with the world a different place.
For the first time in my adult life (I'm 25), I have a leader who represents me, my friends, our hopes, our dreams, our ambitions.
Oh, but where to start? The election of Mr Obama is a sign of America's desire to move past its divided recent history.
It serves notice, too, that the end is here for George W.
Bush's America, where young and old, black and white, rich and poor, liberal and conservative were pitted against each other.
Mr Obama's desire to have America as a diplomatic citizen of the world will further the country's standing globally.
I have travelled extensively in the past four years and have not minded being mistaken for a Canadian on foreign soil.
It has been difficult to explain President Bush; it has been difficult to explain the war in Iraq. Mr Obama assumes his leadership with two wars and a faltering economy.
He has asked us to consider some atypical post-World War 2 American concepts: sacrifice, community service, unity and compromise.
He asks us to be more environmentally friendly and to tighten our belts. Mr Obama "arrived" at the 2004 Democratic National Convention as a brilliant flash of light.
He was running for Senate in Illinois that year.
He was still considered a political novice, but was tipped for bigger things.
Little did we know.
He took his opportunity to deliver a keynote speech and gave us the optimistic vision that would propel him to the White House.
"Hope - hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope! In the end, that is God's greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation . . .
"There is not a liberal America and a conservative America - there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America - there's the United States of America."
And so, the United States of America, part white, part black, part Muslim, part Christian, part Jewish, part agnostic, part poor, part affluent, part gay, part married, part fortunate, part downtrodden, has put its future in the hands of a man who will serve them.
All of them.