teresa

I had just begun to recover from being called greedy and then I was called an alpha dog. I had to look that one up. I have heard it referenced before but was not sure of the true meaning. I don’t think this title truly captures what the person was trying to say.

You see Elliott bought me a gift certificate for a 1 hour massage at Massage Envy for my birthday. I went for my massage last week, my first ever full hour, I have only been for 30 min massages before. I haven’t had a massage since moving except for my about monthly pedicure which sometimes includes the shiatsu chair massage which I am not sure if it actually helps or not, last time it shook me so violently during parts of the rotation that I was giggling because I was bouncing around in the chair. Anyway, first massage in months. With work and wedding planning I am a little tense.

I undressed laid down on the table underneath the blanket – which no one wants to talk about, but it reminds me of my yearly check up. You go in the room, the massage therapist (or doctor) meets you while you are dressed tries to make it not so weird that you are about to strip down and slip under a blanket. Fortunately the blanket at the massage place is much better than the paper thing at the doctor’s office that opens in the front – ok sorry I have gone too far with this analogy, but I thought about this before my massage, probably leading to additional tension.

So I lay down, the lady knocks on the door and says, all ready in there – sound familiar ladies… She comes in, warms her hands by rubbing them together and then uses the lotion fanny pack she wears before starting in on my back. Well first time she touches me I arch my back and almost jump off the table, unlike me to be so jumpy.

We had discussed doing a deep tissue massage which I have also never had, and was a little nervous about because Krista didn’t drink enough water after a deep tissue massage and I think she got really sick. But the lady promised me I would be fine. She stretched my legs a bit to help loosen my lower back. When she was moving around my lower leg I could not relax, I kept trying to anticipate where she was going and moving my leg instead of letting her move it. She kept shaking my foot, saying relax. Finally I laughed and said, I am sorry I lead when I am dancing too. That is when she labeled me with the title of my blog. I understood what she meant in that I prefer to be in control – true. I subsequently worked the rest of the massage to relax.

One tip I learned years ago while at a chiropractor is to direct my attention to my toes. After a car accident in high school I went to a chiropractor a few times. One time he wanted to crack my neck but I sat with every muscle flexed staring him in the eyes when he said wiggle your toes. For a split second I forgot my task at hand, keeping this crazy man from twisting my head violently and I sent all of my thought to my toes, at which point he twisted my head to the right, left and then back before my big toe even made a full frequency of movement.

During my massage I wiggled my toes a lot. I thought of my happy place, which is a sunset I painted as a child, with a mountain landscape, setting sun beaming from all sides, and a river running from the mountains to the bottom of the page and into infinity. That is where I go when I need solstice, when I can’t sleep, or after a nightmare. I used my happy place the other night when I saw huge 6″+ spiders dropping from the ceiling in my sleep. This leads to me gasping for an exterminator and running out of the bedroom – literally. This used to happen every few weeks or so when Elliott and I lived in Deb and Carie’s old apartment on Tierra Verde. I don’t think it happened much in our house on Satellite, and the other night was the first time this nightmare made an appearance in California. Apparently Elliott wasn’t fazed because he waited in bed for me to come back after I came to my senses that it was a dream. The first time I had this nightmare it took a while for him to convince me that the bedroom was safe. Anyway I find it funny admitting that as a adult I have a happy place – a vision which is the same place I envisioned as a child, but I do and I refuse to be embarrassed of it!

I did eventually calm down and even relax a little during my massage. At one point the lady told me something that I had always wanted to hear. You always hear about people having knots in their back, well my back hurts often so I always thought I must have knots but in my few massages I never heard this diagnosis. Funny thing is when I finally heard it I decided the lady was full of crap. Because she said you have a few knots. Then she did her work and at the end she said, I got them the knots are gone. I think that is just a little too scripted, but I thanked her none the less. So who knows if “knots” are true; to me it’s like grey hairs, they seem cool until you get one and then it loses its luster.

Since my massage I have made a resolution to work on relaxing. Elliott has agreed to listen to a meditation cd that I bought a year ago when I realized back then that I needed to relax. We listened to it the other night before bed, the exercise was simple, but worked wonders on clearing my head before bed – I didn’t go to bed with the typical stream of thoughts that I have to write down or email to myself and that I ponder for an hour before finally falling asleep. I think I fell asleep almost instantaneously upon laying down. I am excited to continue practicing meditation. It is something that I have been very interested in for awhile but have never committed to doing. 2008 is my year to make it happen.

We were in Reno a few weeks ago for our holiday party.  We arrived Friday and went to the Reno office.  That night we finally got to fill our Great Basin craving, a good micro beer and great bar food – something we have yet to find out here.  We had dinner with the chairman of our company’s board of directors, great chance to learn about his prospective of the company.

The next morning I left Elliott to get his cable TV fix, not having a TV is great, but it’s nice every once in awhile to get your share of electromagnetic waves.  My to do list included: haircut, pedicure, and tie for Elliott to match my party outfit.

I started at Burlington coat where I bought Elliott 3 ties for the price of 1 at a department store.  All good brands, because he cares about that crap, and one that was a perfect blend of black, white and red to go with my modern slightly Asian styled shirt.  Check, I was off to a good start.  I drove up and down the streets of Reno looking for a spa or nail place that had an opening for a pedicure, thanks to the Blackberry and Google I finally found one.  They didn’t have a great selection of polish colors, but that lady gave me the best pedicure ever.  I just started to write my feet still look great, but upon review they were looking a little dry so I just lathered them up with that lotion that Susan gave me, if only I could remember to do that on a regular basis.  Great massage too, I was a happy camper.  Check, check. 

Lastly I went to get my haircut.  I had called and made an appointment early from the hotel at Seven, looked like a fun, funky salon near downtown.  I pulled up to an old building with nearly graffiti style signage, and thought alright this should be good, I wanted something a little less, engineerish.  I sat in the lobby and started reading a magazine opened on the coffee table highlighting the salon – wow they were in a magazine.  As I read on I learned that it is a salon started by a lesbian woman who wanted to have an alternative spa.  A place where lesbians would be welcome and could be honest about wanting a certain type of hair style whether it be feminine or not.  At this point I looked around and thought oh now, what do I do, I am straight?  Which in hindsight was stupid, but it was interesting to feel out of place.  I actually ended up waiting 30 minutes from my stylist, which almost inspired me to leave but I really wanted a haircut.  She turned out to be really nice, and straight, not that it mattered.  But she did cut my hair crooked.  I finally fixed it this morning because it was driving me crazy.   Elliott said what’s that noise?  I said I am cutting my hair….  It was 1″ longer on one side, and I don’t think it was “designed” that way.  

I made it back to the hotel, my list complete and we went to our party.  Elliott was the MC, he was a riot.  He had 1/2 a glass of wine too much, but I don’t think anyone else noticed or cared, I didn’t.  I loved seeing him at the center of attention, and making everyone laugh.  Everyone loves Elliott, and so do I.

Not even half way across the pool, pretty sure I would drown if I kept going Angela looked at me from over 30 yards away, disappointed.  She threw her arm up in the air, no words were needed.  She eventually swam to my safety in the 4′ deep section of the pool.  I told her, I don’t think I can do this today.  Just under the surface I was ready to cry, everything had caught up with me and tears were rising up for the first time.  Angela quickly explained to me that being emotional doesn’t work for the 4 year olds and it wasn’t going to work for me.

I wondered if the 4 year old she was referring to, the little blonde girl who swims like a damn fish in the hour before my lesson, was struggling with the idea of her mom having breast cancer – preparing for a mastectomy and chemo.  I wondered if she was selling her house, moving to a foreign city (ok so what it is Pleasanton, CA, only 4 hours away – it is still pretty damn stressful), working till 11pm just to keep her head above water, AND donated blood yesterday so she was still using that as an excuse for feeling sluggish.  Angela had no idea the number excuses to cry she was dealing with here.

Angela meant business, she wasn’t going to put up with crying.  I would like to see her and Krista duke it out, after all Krista has coined the term for our family, that’s why god gave us tears -for crying.  Well apparently god didn’t give Angela tears or at least the patience for dealing with a sorry ass adult ready to break down in the middle of her measly 45 minute lesson.  I continued on, each time on the long trek to the other side of the pool during my “break” of just kicking with the kick board I looked at the other end of the pool and I visualized jumping out and leaving Angela in the pool, stunned.  But each time I turned around and managed the best freestyle stroke I could muster gasping each 3rd stroke for a sacred breath.  At one point Angela asked me, you don’t like me very much right now, do you?  I told her no, I don’t, I couldn’t lie, I didn’t, I couldn’t even look at her I was so unhappy to be there in that pool at that moment.

There was eventually an end that was less dramatic than I had envisioned.  We raced to the end of the pool for our last lap, I think she let me tie her.  Afterwards she built me up by telling me I was doing great, and that the endurance was important, so we had to push.  Little did she know I was feeling better.  My body had finally enlivened after being sedentary all day, it felt good to have my heart pumping.  I am sure every athlete knows that some days are good, you feel like you could run forever, and some are bad – some really bad.  It’s the bad days that really teach you your own personal strength, that’s when you learn what you are made of.  Today I was made of mush – emotionally – I am going to have to work on that.

Following my lesson I went straight to a therapy session, my toe nails are now freshly painted, the massage built into the chair was great, and I caught up on my magazine reading.  Next swimming lesson will be better.  I am glad I didn’t cry and I am glad I didn’t quit, after all the best advice I can give my mom is to keep fighting and that feeling bad for yourself isn’t going to accomplish anything, today I had to live that advice.