unexpectedly

Tonight was the first time I felt a surge of panic. You know how epiphanies often surface at the nadir or how such sudden enlightenment often manifeset under deep emotions like grief, happiness, shock... I guess that is happening to me now.

Powerful emotions like fear and panic somehow make this whole experience more real. It is like the proverbial pinch-yourself-to-see-if-this-is-all-real-and-not-just-a-dream expression. The A levels used to seem so surreal - perhaps we have become so used to it that we stop feeling the bite of reality. And now, it never feels more real.

The As is here. It is happening in 4 days' time!

Things like wistfulness, rose-tinted sentiments and beautiful ideals, they can be blocked, masked or obscured from the surface of our minds through distraction - by reading, studying or even playing. But things like deadlines and THE IMPORTANT TEST can't. It is like how we can never run away from our shadows, or tear ourselves away from our skin, and in a parallel vein of thought, we can never run away from the reality of As.

Sigh. This is all so unexpected.