#76 – Get a massage.

First things first – let me tell you I get massages monthly. Thanks to the size of my ta-ta’s the doctor wrote me a note for massages a year ago, and my health plan through work is wonderful enough to cover the entire expense. But they are not really REAL massages. You see, I race through rush hour traffic to get there, and then my massage therapist has become like a great friend so I talk to her throughout the entire hour long session. That’s right she’s a she, and I’m comfortable with her. I know what to expect every time I go. I also always keep on panties and feel bad if I forget on days where I have appointments and wear a thong as that’s often the line where she’ll tuck in the sheet. But still we talk for the hour, and then I’ll rush home to cook/clean etc, never really relaxing.

But I NEVER relax. It’s impossible for me to do. My brain doesn’t shut off and I’m always thinking about what I should be doing, or what I’ve got to do. I try to keep up with TV shows, and read books, etc to relax, but often enough the books pile up unread and the PVR is backlogged with unwatched shows. If I am in front of the TV I’m also folding clothes/sending e-mails/creating lists/painting my toe-nails etc, I never really sit still. I go every day until I crash and then I get up in the morning and hit the ground running – sometimes literally!

So this weekend my best friend decided that a day of relaxation and some girl time was exactly what the two of us needed. I agreed so off we went to: http://www.scandinave.com/en/bluemountain

I started the day with a 6am wake up (not my favourite for a Saturday), and a wrong turn ending up on some scenic gravel roads. To attempt to start to relax I pulled over at a scenic lookout point, and my café mocha and I watched the sunrise here:

After a few hours of driving and another Timmie’s stop we arrived, changed into bathing suits grabbed our robes and headed out to the pools. We spent hours going from hot tub, to cool plunge, to sauna or steam room or campfire and repeat. All sounds lovely and relaxing doesn’t it? The entire time I was counting down the minutes until the dreaded time of 1:15 where I was going to cheat on my massage therapist. Plus, I was uncomfortable and on edge because I didn’t even know who was going to be massaging me – male or female?! There was absolutely no relaxing going on for this chick, I spent my time trying not to get "shhhhh’d" by the shhhhhh police – as you know serenity is not achieved with lots of noise. Who knew?

1pm rolls around and there are probably 13 women waiting for the massage therapists to come out of their rooms. A door beside me opens and this absolutely beautiful male specimen walks out and smiles at me. My thoughts are exactly 'OHGODNO. Please, OHGODNO!’ He asks if my name is Denise – I reply no and then thank every lucky penny that it’s not. I could NOT handle an hour with that guy naked. That’s right NAKED. As our bathing suits are soaked from the pools you’re not about to get a massage for an hour in a wet suit. I sit up and check out all the massage therapists and decide that any one of them will be perfectly acceptable. Names are called and the women start to part, I continue to sit, I don’t hear my name. Mr. Yummy massage therapist is also not being able to find Denise. I still sit avoiding eye contact and in my head contemplating maybe I got lucky and my therapist got sick or something and I don’t actually have to get a massage and I can just go back to hanging out in the hot tubs. WRONG. Mr. I-should-be-a-male-model-and-not-a-massage-therapist asks me my last name. Yup – they booked me under the wrong first name, and within a minute I’m naked under a sheet repeating “f$#k this”, over and over and over, and over until he comes in. I explain to him that I don’t relax, so not to take it personally – he took that as a challenge.

My massage therapist only massages my back/shoulders and neck with a little oil. Not this guy – he started at the feet with enough oil to turn the massage bed into a slip ‘n slide (that’s after he was lifting the sheet and tucking it places where I’m not used to). Of course to ease the situation we make small talk about the drive up, and where he’s from, etc, and I manage for the majority of the hour. Until the last 10 minutes where he lifts the sheet and asks me to roll over. Up until this point he was just a voice, now there’s a face, and a smile. I’m pretty sure all of me turned 5 shades of red, and I again thanked all my lucky stars that I am not male, or this situation had the potential to be quite embarrassing. During that last 10 minutes I got my hands on the rarest most prized item in the entire spa (get your dirty minds out of the gutter). I got a dry towel. That’s right after you get in and out of the pools a million times your towel becomes a cold drenched item that is not at all drying and you only get 2 for the entire visit. Well Jason (that’s his name), decided that I should have a dry towel. Life was good.

I spent another 2 hours following the massage in la-la land, sitting around a campfire in 5 degree weather, in a wet bathing suit not even cold. Amazing. I will definitely go back and I recommend it to anyone and everyone who is ever in the area.

Jason told me that I need to make a daily effort to relax and that maybe, just maybe, one day I’ll truly be able to do it. I’ve been awake now for 8 hours, I’ve driven 2 hours home, gotten and put away groceries, ran 5km’s, done 2 loads of laundry, individually cleaned each piece of my vertical blinds, brushed my cat, lysol wiped the inside of both cars, picked out my outfits for the week (yes I’m that organized), and have written this entry. But here on out this day is about relaxing. I have 5+ hours of PVR’d TV shows, the book ‘eat pray love’, yesterday’s paper, and a soaker tub calling my name.

#76 ‘Get a massage’ or ‘Be Man-handled’ was not that bad. I think I’ll repeat next year :)