I sat in my car and sobbed. All day, pushing this cart from classroom to classroom, subbing as the traveling Spanish teacher for grades K through 6, I just kept muttering my mantra of the day: Youre getting a massage today. Youre getting a massage today. My sister bought me an hourlong massage last week, and I scheduled it for today, knowing it would have been a long, hard, painful day -- and that a massage would be the perfect ending, just the thing to soothe the inevitable grinding pain that comes from a day like today. And it was awful. The masseuse rubbed just hard enough to bring every nerve ending alive -- but not hard enough to ease any of the ache. In other words, I went in hurting, and came out hurting worse. And at no point in this awful experience did I have the guts to say, Stop. You need to do this harder or not at all, because the way youre doing it is only making me feel worse. I dont know WHY I didnt stop her. She was being paid to be there. Was I afraid of hurting her professional feelings? Or was I just in too much pain to speak? I dont know. I just know that I barely kept it together to get to the car, and by the time the seatbelt was buckled I was sobbing, those awful, hard, hiccuppy sobs you only let out when youre alone… or six years old. The disappointment was worse than the pain. Im used to the pain. But to have looked forward all day to a massage, and to have submitted to this mediocre excuse for one for an entire hour… It was beyond my capacity to do much more than drive on autopilot while gasping out what felt like the sobs of mourning. I described to to Adam as akin to a man getting a terrible blow job from you fantasy woman. He found the analogy apt. Its been almost three hours since that drive home, and Im almost recovered, emotionally if not physically. If this entire anecdote has the ring of Epitome of First World Problems, well, yes - I know. But if youve ever spent an entire day anticipating something only to have it either not happen or turn out to be awful, you know that even this kind of luxury problem can be terrible. All things are relative. Then theres the old saying, you get what you pay for. Which would be fine, except maybe I didnt pay for it, but my sister sure did. At least shell have plenty of warning when she goes in for her own; presumably itll be the same masseuse. Heather can go in knowing what to expect… Ugh. I feel like such a whiner. Like a young child getting exactly the present she DIDNT want for Christmas… Youre supposed to be grateful to get anything at all, and you know that -- but the killing feeling of expecting, I dont know, a Barbie Dream House, and instead getting a chemistry set… Really, its just an awful, awful feeling. Okay. End of whine. Thanks for tolerating.
Posted on: Tue, 16 Sep 2014 01:01:06 +0000
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