A week before the results, the anxiety comes back.
Not all at once.
Not like before, when it filled every available space and left no room for anything else.
This is quieter, more persistent.
It settles somewhere under everything I do, like a low-frequency sound I can't quite hear but can't ignore either.
I notice it when I wake up.
Not immediately, not in that first disoriented moment between sleep and consciousness, but a few seconds after, when my brain catches up and remembers.
One week.
Seven days.
I lie there for a while, staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out if I feel different.
I don't.
Which is the problem.
Because I should feel done with it by now. The submission is over, the designs are out of my hands, there's nothing left to revise or fix or improve.
There's nothing left to do.
And somehow that makes it worse.
I get out of bed anyway.
Routine helps.
Or at least, that's what I tell myself.
***
I try to sketch.
