> When COVID hit, everything changed.
For the world.
For my country.
For me.
Schools were closed.
Classes ended overnight.
Teachers disappeared into their own struggles.
And for a brief moment, it felt like the world was holding its breath.
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> I should've been in Senior Three —
just starting to understand who I was in school,
just beginning to feel grounded in something that was mine.
Instead, I was sent home.
And home?
Was not a place for rest.
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> While other students were inside, eating, sleeping, laughing,
I was working.
Because my parents don't know what "rest" means for a girl like me.
Not the firstborn.
Not the quiet one.
Not the one who "doesn't complain."
Every day, there was something.
Something to carry.
Something to scrub.
Something to clean or endure or fix.
And if I sat down,
it was a problem.
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Meanwhile, schools slowly reopened — but only for final-year classes.
And suddenly,
my life was fast-forwarded without asking me.
> Just like that, I was placed in Senior Four.
No warning.
No preparation.
No care.
I hadn't even finished Senior Three – Term One.
But there I was.
In a class I didn't belong to.
Holding books I hadn't been taught.
Expected to perform like someone who had been preparing for years.
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> It felt like being pushed into a river with no life jacket —
and being told to swim because "you're smart enough."
And maybe I was.
But smart doesn't save you from drowning.
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I don't know if I loved those days or hated them.
There were quiet moments.
Late nights where I watched the world outside slow down.
Mom being around again.
Fewer school pressures — for a while.
But there was also this strange, suffocating pressure…
> To be everything.
To grow up faster.
To catch up to a life that wouldn't slow down for me.
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It was like I had skipped a part of my story —
and no one thought I'd notice.
But I did.
And the girl who returned to school after that?
She wasn't the same.
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