August 28, 2012
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Larvae
I’m sporting several chigger bites on my arms, hands, and ankles, but especially around my elbows. Chiggers are the larval stage of a variety of mite. They feed on the skin of larger animals. These immature buggies bore a whole in skin and then pump in digestive enzymes, which begin to break down the skin tissue so the little arachnid can start feeding. They leave intensely itchy marks behind. They make my life very itchy, which is a super bummer. I’m not a fan. Apart from using calamine lotion, there’s not much I can do relieve the irritation. (Note: I researched it, and contrary to all the advice I’ve heard during my life, chiggers don’t itch because they’re still living in your skin; rather, your skin has a reaction to the feeding structure left behind–nail polish isn’t going to help this time.)
How did I acquire such little irritations? It’s along, complicated story that ends up with me spending the night in a cemetery. Actually, the story isn’t that complicated…or long. It’s convoluted and recursive in that way that only the individual, mental wars are; it’s not well suited for the traditional, linear narrative. But I’ll try…
While I was away from home, I thought of myself as away from my real life…that’s kind of what trips are for, right? But rather than embracing the normal voyage-to-discovery motif, I treated it just as a diversion or an escape. I tried to put coming home as far from my mind as possible…and then I had to. While I was gone, I intentionally put off trying to think about what would happen when I came home. I was still unsure whether I wanted to do law school. I’m still not. I really felt like I needed more time. Really. Because I was unsure, I didn’t look at housing or decide where I wanted to live. I didn’t really start looking until I got back on the 22d. Classes started on the 27th.
Thursday, my parents exerted some pressure for me to make up my mind. I didn’t think I could. When my Dad got home about 3:30, they gave me an ultimatum: I needed to make up a decision by 4:00. I couldn’t do it. They made me take a walk…and I wasn’t sure I’d come back. I threw my phone in the front yard on the way down the street. I didn’t return until the next day. I was afraid to go back before I made up my mind; and then it got dark. I laid my largish frame on the smallish benches in that cemetery to sleep. I clapped occasionally to keep the precocious possum and the slinky skunks away. (Skunks are terrifying, BTW.)
It was probably a little immature. But, it was a better option that my first thought, which involved setting myself on fire, a la Lucille Bluth. That way, I thought, I’d least have time to think through things while in an institution. (Plus, how cool would it be to be around crazy people all day–as long as they weren’t dangerous.) Oy vey.
Sometimes I feel like a human larva. It’s bad because I’m almost twenty-four. I’m supposed to be an “adult.” It seems to me that being an “adult,” means not caring about problems you can’t fix. That’s poopy. And I don’t like it. It seems intellectually and emotionally lazy or irresponsible or something…It’s like admitting that you have no clarity of vision and that you’re stumbling around without regard for the direction.
No thanks. That’s not for me. So, I may refuse to grow up. TAKE THAT WORLD! I’ll be a perpetual chigger…and probably just irritating everyone around me. : (
