The exorcist 😈

Are you there, God?

I went to get a massage this week and found myself halfway through kicking my feet and screaming on the table.
 
My friend and exercise guy, Dan, had suggested I make an appointment with a massage therapist who specializes in myofascial release after another one of his clients had found relief for knee pain in just a few sessions. Since I struggle with chronic back tightness and foot pain, he thought she might be able to help me as well. “It couldn’t hurt,” he said.
 
After a quick consult, she lead me into a room and I immediately regretted the bra and underwear I’d put on when I got dressed about 10 hours earlier, which had been geared towards that day’s work outfit and not modesty. I stood in front of her as she assessed my posture and then hopped up on the table for her to get to work.
 
She began by pushing on my right thigh for a bit and trying to coax the tendons and bones to shift from an irregular position. Then she pushed her fingers deep into my abdomen and told me I might begin to feel emotional. I tried to quiet my mind and stop wishing I’d worn better underwear, and out of nowhere I felt very hot and my eyes filled with tears.
 
“You have a lot of sadness,” she said and I nodded and wiped a tear off my face.
 
During the consult, the therapist had explained that connective tissue holds a lot of our trauma and scar tissue, from both physical and emotional challenges we’d encountered. All I knew is that I’ve been struggling with a lot of lower back and foot pain and wanted it to go away and didn’t care if it was arthritis, a lonely childhood or scar tissue from an episiotomy that was the root cause.
 
She then placed one hand on my heart and slipped the other one under my back and eventually, I felt a wave of emotion and my body shuddered as it came out and I cried. The therapist moved behind my head and held my throat and made a noise and my body decided to do the same and a low groan emerged from my lips
 
There were moments during the 90-minute session when I thought, “This is absolutely nuts,” and considered the scene and felt amused by the exorcism taking place. Then I would go back to focusing on the guttural noises coming from my throat and kicking my feet to try facilitating whatever it was inside me that suddenly needed to get out.

Later, I sat with the therapist and drank a bottle of water, and waited for my lightheadedness to subside and she told me that not everyone was open to exploring letting go of whatever it is that's buried deep within their connective tissue. "But that's the way to heal," she told me, "from the inside, out."
 

***

 
On Saturday, I was lying on top of another massage table while a different woman waved her hands above me and stopped along certain points of my body to assess energy coming off my various chakras. Before we started we talked for a bit and she went to speak and began to cough. “I can tell we’re already connected because I can feel your throat clearing,” she told me, lifting a bottle of water to her mouth.
 
During the session, she told me she could sense I was opening and transforming and that I was about to experience the “death of ego” as she rid me of an older version of myself. The one filled with stories about who she was based on the past, allowing me to move forward and be the person I was always supposed to be.
 
The woman is a healing medium and grew up with a good friend of mine, but it wasn’t until another friend called me recently and mentioned she’d gone to see her, did I even consider going myself. A little voice said, “You should do that,” and I listened, just like I listened when Dan told me to go get my fascia worked on.
 

***

 
Two hundred and one days ago, something told me to put down the glass of red wine I was drinking, which was not something I usually did when drinking. If anything, I’d often wake up in the morning to be greeted by a glass on my nightstand coated with the remnants of whatever alcohol I'd taken up to bed.
 
But for some reason that night, I stopped drinking long before I went to bed and the next day, something kept me from pouring another drink around dinnertime. And that has kept happening now for many days. So many that I don't even think about having a drink when 5:00 rolls around. 

When I read “Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret.” in fourth grade, it was life-changing, having nothing to do with God. I was all about boobs, boys, and periods and could have cared less about the protagonist’s struggle with a lack of any formal religion. Maybe because all I had was religion back then.
 
I went to a tiny Catholic school and could rattle off the Ten Commandments and Act of Contrition, but I never felt close to God. I never understood what anyone meant when they used the word faith. I’d just nod my head and go through the motions. I envied Margaret getting to have that kind of connection with God, but never even thought about trying it for myself.
 

***

 
If you know anything about a step recovery program, then you know that God, or whatever you chose as a higher power, is involved. Initially, I went along with it because, much like the myofascial release lady, what did I have to lose? And I’m good at doing what I’m told.
 
And then some weird things started happening, like one day, I started working on my resume with purpose -- pulling the thing apart and rethinking what I wanted it to say. That night, an old friend called to say she had an opening on her marketing team and told me I should think about applying. About six weeks later, I was offered the job.
 
Not long after that, my accountant called to talk taxes and then asked if as a freelancer, I’d applied for a PPP loan yet. “Do it,” she told me, and that money came in right when a big loss of income also hit my bank account. Of course, good things have always been happening in my life. The difference is that I’m starting to notice them and count them more as blessings rather than things that I deserved.
 
I’ve spent the last few months trying to get really quiet and listen and pay attention. I am facing some financial issues right now but instead of freaking out and putting my house on the market or thinking about getting a second job, I have faith that the answer will come when I need it.

 ***

Unlike Margaret, my convos with God still don’t feel super easy but I have tried making them regular. There’s a morning prayer I like that asks to be free of doubt and indecision and asks for him to guide me through the day and show me my next step. “Give me what I need to take care of any problems,” the prayer ends. Please, God, just tell me what to do. I've run out of ideas.
 
But it’s pretty fucking cool to believe that someone -- something bigger than me -- has got my back. Honestly, I can’t say that anyone important in my life ever has. And whether it’s God, the universe, Mickey Mouse, whatever it is that is leading me down this path of discovery, I’ll take it. 
 
The novelist E.L. Doctorow said, "Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” That’s the way I’m thinking about living a life of faith or believing that maybe a higher power is trying to show me the way.
 
I don’t really know where the road is going, but I can see far enough ahead to know that I’m okay.

xoAmy

SUNDAY SHARES: read-watch-cook-buy

• I continue to binge the poop out of Younger. It is the only after-dinner sweet I allow myself these days and honestly, it's doing the trick. I've made it to Season 3 and Season 7 just dropped so it really is like being presented with a family-sized bag of Cadbury mini eggs.

• Have you devoured the first three Handmaid's Tale episodes that came out on Hulu last week? I mean, wow. Each one more wrenching than the next. 

• I started reading the new Oprah book that looks at the brain and trauma, resilience and healing and the first 50 pages have already been heavily highlighted. 

• Just because I'm not drinking anymore doesn't mean you can't take all the addictions away from the girl. Witness: TikTok. I love it so much. Maybe as much as wine. Like, damn this mom is smart and these dogs are so dumb. I love it.

• Congratulations, Earth Day. You succeeded in making me feel like a real shit for the amount of plastic I'd been tossing into the landfill lately, between all the Kcups and water bottles I'd been buying. So I bought this giant Brita thing to keep on my counter to replace the case (or two) of water bottles me and two kids would chug through weekly. But forget about the Kcups for now, since my brand was on sale at Costco last month and I invested in about $80 worth of them.