I'll explain your issue first, and then explain some more confusion from the other comments.

STEEM is way up in the markets the last 24 hours or so - up 40%!

That makes 1 steem = $1.50 -ish. So 45 steem is not equal to 45 usd anymore, it's more like 30 usd, because the money you earned came before the rise in market value, and I think the money is static for the first 7 days until payout. your 32 steem is actually about 48USD right now, which seems correct.

So in reality your 68.174 is SBD is more like 90USD, but with the missing rest - 25% (Though I'm obviously not being accurate with my maths) going to the curators. That's why people curate. It's why whales curate more than post because for them, with such huge steem power, curating is more valuable than writing because they get the majority of that 25% each time.

Basically you just need to not expect the income that you initially see, so your expectation isn't destroyed.

And secondly, 2 years is incorrect! It used to be two years, but one of the Hard Forks changed it to 12 weeks. 1/12th of your money each week. This is very reasonable to prevent people from doing 'pump and dump', or hit and run, or any manner of scams. For example whales that invested early and bought a lot when cheap can't simply run away, and it doesn't cause mass financial panic in the markets.