By Matt Thekkethala ’15, Feature Columnist 

Labor Day. The last day of summer vacation. It’s supposed to be a holiday to honor the labor movement of the 1800s, but to me, Labor Day is a reminder of the labor that I will endure over the next ten months at Newark Academy.

10:30PM. I sit on my bed, attempting to read the last few chapters of my Spanish summer reading book before calling it a night. I say ‘attempting’ because I can’t focus; I am distracted by an ominous thought.

This was the last summer of my childhood.

I can’t get it out of my head. In a month from now, I’ll be eighteen. An adult. A man. The thought was overwhelming. I’m not ready to grow up. I still use children’s toothpaste. And yet it’s happening.

One night, when I was eight years old, I remember sitting on this exact place on my bed. I’d found out that my cousin had begun to drive, and I became jealous. The day when I’d proudly plop myself into the front seat of my dad’s Lexus, look him in the eye, and say, “I got this,” seemed so far off. I counted the days, the weeks, the months, the years, wishing for all of it to go by quickly and painlessly. Now that I’m here, I wish that it had gone slower. I wish that I had appreciated my youth more. I wish that I don’t have to grow up.

Now that I think about it, did I actually have a childhood? That’s crazy. Of course I did.

But did I?

I’ve never gone go-karting. I don’t think I’ve ever tried funnel cake at the boardwalk. And when people ask me if I’ve seen Ghostbusters, I lie and say ‘yes.’

The list of ‘essential’ childhood experiences that I have missed out on goes on and on.

This past summer, I planned on checking off all the boxes. I wanted to fly a kite at the beach. I wanted to lie in the grass in my backyard and gaze at the blue sky, both clouds and time going by seamlessly. But instead, I faced the reality of a college-bound, Newark Academy senior’s summer.

Between internships, volunteer work, studying for the SAT (again), visiting colleges, summer reading, and working on my extended essay – all of which were fulfilling experiences – I never even got to sit on my front porch and read a book for pleasure.

10:30PM. I put down the book, hop off my bed, and walk outside. It’s dark. It’s humid. It’s sketchy.

I sit on the grass among chirping crickets and other creatures of the night in my pajamas. I lean back and look at the sky.

Nothing. No stars. No lights. Just blackness. I sit there. Staring.

What am I even doing anymore? It’s over. Summer. Leisure. Childhood. All in one. Over.

I feel a prickling sensation on my back. A daddy-long-legs. I jump up and thrash my arms around, screaming and wishing it would get off. I return to my house. And I begin laughing.

Because as I sat there staring into the infinite nothingness, I realized that even though it was nothingness, it was infinite. It was infinite.

Yeah. I’ll be a legal adult. But that doesn’t mean anything. Age is just a number. I know that this quotation has been used by all kinds of creepy people to justify their actions, but they’re right to a certain extent. I’ll be a kid for the rest of my life. I have decades to watch Ghostbusters, to eat funnel cake, to look at the clouds. I have at least sixty summers left, and then I’ll have infinite summers when they invent an immortality pill or something like that.

Life is short. But it’s also excruciatingly long. Whenever you think that you’re about to run out of time, think again. You have all the time in the world. And with it, do a lot of things. Be a lot of people.

Childhood doesn’t end when you’re eighteen. It never ends. It is infinite.