After a few weeks covering an election campaign, normal time stops existing.

This was my third election campaign covering Maltese politics and my second general election, but the first I experienced from an editor's standpoint rather than solely as a reporter.

That meant still following the same debates, press conferences and political activities, but with a different kind of pressure hanging over the day. Deadlines felt tighter, evenings stretched longer, and by the third week of the campaign, every day had started blending into the next.

What struck me most was not necessarily the politics itself, but the rhythm of the election campaigns and how quickly they take over your daily life.

For weeks, evenings stopped belonging to evenings. Political activities almost always started later than scheduled, something I eventually began referring to as "tentative times" rather than actual times.

If an event was scheduled on the press call for 6.30pm, you automatically knew it would begin at 7pm at the absolute earliest. More often than not, it drifted towards 7.30pm.

Even once activities officially "started", another ritual still had to play out: at least 15 more minutes of selfies, handshakes, hugs and conversations with supporters before leaders finally made their way to the stage.

One thing that genuinely fascinated me throughout the campaign was the desire people seemed to have to shove their children into the arms of both political leaders for photographs.

It happened constantly with both leaders throughout the campaign, though given that I ended up covering Robert Abela more frequently, if I had started counting the number of toddlers handed over to him during activities, I would have run out of fingers fairly quickly.

After a while, it almost became part of the choreography of Maltese election campaigns.

When I was on late shift, such delays meant finishing up far later than usual, eating dinner at hours that barely qualified as dinner anymore, and waking up tired the next morning to repeat the entire cycle again.

I was also fascinated by the contrast at the end of activities, after the leaders' speeches ended.

Cameras panned towards crowds still dancing, waving flags and singing campaign songs, while journalists scrambled to write their article and switch off for the night.

By the third week of the campaign, I realised I could predict entire evenings before they happened. The same speeches are reshaped slightly for different localities, the same proposals reappear with different wording, and the same campaign songs start sounding like a permanent soundtrack to your life.

At one point, the campaign songs became impossible to escape. They played before every political activity, appeared in endless Instagram and Facebook reels afterwards, and somehow followed me home onto my own social media feeds. By then, hearing the opening few seconds was enough to make me scroll away immediately.

As a 26-year-old following the campaign every day, I found myself constantly trying to work out which proposals would actually affect me directly.

A large number of pledges focused on families, parents, pensioners or children. Aside from Labour's extension of first-time buyer schemes, the proposal that stood out most to me came from the PN: a five-year income tax exemption for young workers and the self-employed earning up to €50,000 annually, claimable during the first 10 years of employment.

At the same time, after almost five years working in journalism, I could not help becoming somewhat cynical about the sheer volume of promises being made every single day.

Election campaigns create a strange cycle where proposals dominate headlines for 24 hours before immediately being replaced by another announcement the next morning.

Some eventually materialise. Others quietly disappear.

By the end of it, beyond the speeches, slogans and late nights, I found myself hoping that whichever party wins, will genuinely implement the measures people spent weeks applauding.