Dear Journal: Therapeutic

Dear Journal,

Getting a massage is one of the most amazing feelings in the history of… amazing feelings. I remember my first one, when it felt like I was stretched out on a cloud instead of a table. The room was warm, but I wasn’t sweating. There was beautiful music of the rainforest coming from speakers somewhere else in the room, but we might as well have been in a real rainforest for all I knew then. It was such a beautiful feeling.

And there were hands on me. It seemed like 20 hands all at once, but there must have only been two. They felt as smooth as butter, and magic flowed from them. It was maybe an hour, or perhaps it was two, but time stood still while my joints and muscles relaxed for what felt like the first time in forever. Apparently I was tight — something about stress — and my muscles needed to loosen. Halfway through they were indeed loose. In fact, I felt disconnected from my body, like a newly minted ghost rising higher with each gust of wind.

If it wasn’t for the cost of a massage I would get one every single day, honestly. I would be there right after work, letting the masseuse work out all my kinks, getting loose and stress free. Maybe I could find a place that does a mini-massage, maybe a 20-minute exercise in relaxation that I could take with me, close my eyes and recreate when I needed it. Or maybe I could read a book, something like Massage For Dummies and I could give myself some approximation of a massage. Yeah, that wouldn’t be feasible, but maybe I could convince my wife to read the book and we could give each other massages.

That wouldn’t work, though, because there’s something in the professional training, something that takes it to another level, where it’s puffy like those clouds I mentioned before, where the music and the massage blend together to transcend this physical world. After that first time I walked out of the massage parlor with what seemed like a casual stroll, but what was instead rubbery legs. I felt like I was swimming through water that moved aside to let me sail through. I miss that feeling. It’s a natural high, a precious gift from those magic hands to me.

Sam