At the end of yet another late night, my friends would congregate in my room for one last nightcap. I lived at the heart of the Princeton campus, on the top floor of a Gothic-style dorm, crested with turrets and grimacing gargoyles. We’d witnessed more sunrises in the last semester than we had in our entire lives, a combination of logging long hours at the library to finish our senior theses followed by boozy parties that raged until dawn. “I’ve never felt so tired in my life,” I confessed to my friends one day, as we were walking to class. I began dozing through orchestra rehearsals and job interviews, deadlines and dinner, only to wake up feeling even more depleted. No amount of sleep seemed to appease my body.
The naps that lasted two, then four, then six hours. And when I had sex, I had sex with the lights off.Īlong with the itch came the naps. I purchased dark-colored sheets to mask the rusty stains. Once the weather turned too warm to wear jeans every day, I invested in a collection of opaque black tights. I slathered myself in drugstore potions made of witch hazel tonic and I plugged my nose as I drank the bitter tea concoctions. I washed my skin with a wet cloth, watching the crimson streaks swirl down the shower drain. I hoped it would clear up on its own.Įvery morning, I would crack the door of my dorm room, scan the hall, and sprint in my towel to the communal bathroom before anyone could see my limbs. But no one seemed to know for sure, so I tried not to make a big deal out of it. A general practitioner surmised that it was stress related and gave me samples of an antianxiety medication. A nurse at the college health center thought it might be eczema and recommended a cream. “It might be a parasite you picked up while studying abroad,” a Chinese herbalist told me before sending me off with foul-smelling supplements and bitter teas. Bloody harbingers of a mounting struggle taking place inside of me. A scree of oozing nicks, thick scabs, and fresh scars soon marred my legs as if they had been beaten with rose thistles. I itched while dancing with friends on the beer-slicked floors of basement taprooms. I itched under the big wooden desk of my library carrel. I itched during my part-time job at the campus film lab. Without realizing what I was doing, my hand began meandering down my legs, my nails raking my jeans in search of relief, before burrowing under the hem to sink directly into flesh. I tried to resist scratching, but the itch was relentless, spreading across the surface of my skin like a thousand invisible mosquito bites. A maddening, claw-at-your-skin, keep-you-up-at-night itch that surfaced during my senior year of college, first on the tops of my feet and then moving up my calves and thighs.
Not a metaphorical itch to travel the world or some quarter-life crisis, but a literal, physical itch.
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