I went to my room and sat on my bed, staring at the little white envelope that my dad
had given me the night before. It had seemed so incongruous then, just a silly note
my dad had passed to me while I was trying to fall asleep. But now it seemed more
important, in a way. He was on a crazy adventure what if he didn't come back?
This was a possibility I had not considered at all in the months and years leading up
to his launch, but now it hit me in a very real way.
Why might the author have used the verb "hit" here?