Childhood's End

Late at night, with a cup of apple juice generously cut with ice, the reflective thoughts arise.

There are movies, you see, and books and comics, about high-schoolers worrying about their graduation, about college and living through it. It's such a commonplace setting that it isn't questioned anymore.

I'm there. I'm past that.

I am no longer a student. I am an adult. An adult with a degree. Somehow I passed university, like it was nothing.

Something tells me it should have been different, significant, difficult at least. But it was much the same as always. The same type of challenges, met with the same fervour in solving them. I think, if possible, I have become even more childish this year. At home, uniformity was important. Here, being different is celebrated.

After work I bring chocolates for everyone, to thank them - for being there? For their little instances of helpfulness? No matter. My supervisor has long gone home, so I tape some leftover chocolate to his office door. The next day he comes to me, asking - Were those for him? From me? There is a pleased sort of softness to his tone - and I don't know what to say. I don't know how to tell him there was nothing special about what was attached to his door. I don't know how to deal with this new information, that he would readily accept a gift from me, even if there was no occasion for it.

I come back to my desk and find that the little toys I've kept around are now on another person's desk, in positions which may charitably be referred to as "indecent". Piqued, I dismantle the diorama.

Childhood has not ended, for me or anyone else.