Yesterday I headed to the cheap massage because, as a rule, this day spa is a good bang for the buck. I typically like a deep tissue massage. My normal therapist was off, so I tried someone new. I chose her because when the receptionist listed the names of available massage therapists, I chose Grace because, well, I like grace. I hear good things about grace.
If a Cybertruck married a Hummer and gave birth to a military Humvee, Grace was the baby. No gentle touch, no fluidity. It was all bone-crushing pokes, presses, and sudden, jerky jabs. Grace relied most on her elbows. Near the end, when she got to my face and asked permission to go there, I nodded. Sure, why not? What could she do to a face? Surely, she wouldn’t use her bony elbows there.
Grace used her hydraulic-jackhammer fingers in such a way that I saw stars. Did I complain? Of course not.
Walking out, I handed Grace the same tip I would have given if she’d been truly graceful rather than a wrecking ball.
Why?
Good question.
Grace.
I got to my car, started the ignition, and a song was playing that always evokes Joey. The song always hits me hard, but this time? It leveled me. No ramp-up to this release. This was a no-warning, Hoover Dam break. I bawled in my car for no less than twenty minutes. Generally, there are no words to describe the deep, dark despair that comes in unexpected waves of my Joey-grief. But this one was for the books.
When I got home, I sat on my bed. I felt like I’d just gone 12 rounds with Jake Paul. The pain in my forehead, temples, eyebrows, and around my eyes was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. It was more than just fatigue from crying. This was different, and I literally passed out as though I’d been drugged.
I fell into the deepest sleep and, in fact, had a hard time waking up.
After I woke, I groggily Googled, “Can a deep-tissue massage around your temples, eyebrows, and eyes make you emotional?”
Apparently, what happened was somatic emotional release. Pent-up emotions and holding-it-together tension were released in the most dramatic way through Grace’s dam elbows and fingers.
I know everyone grieves differently, and I have no judgment about how grief looks different on different people.
This is my walk.
I write publicly about my grief because: Alchemy.
Also, it simply feels like there is no other way for me to move forward.
For me, expressing it releases pain (breaking all the “tiny” dams) and transforms it into something at least somewhat bearable and, at best, beautiful. For others, I want this experiment I didn’t sign up for to help someone else in deep, dark despair—including the kind that’s suppressed for fear of being a Debbie Downer.
A friend has told me on more than one occasion, “You’re showing us how to suffer.” In clarifying, she added, “…suffer well.”
That made a difference.
I heard Rick Warren preach years ago about not “wasting pain” but using it for the greater good. Is that what’s meant by suffering well?
I once did a bit at The Comedy Store in Hollywood. I always thought of myself as someone who wanted to show others how to laugh, enjoy the simple things, and find joy, you know, all the shiny stuff. So, I’m what now, not shiny but a dull Debbie Downer? Maybe I misled myself early on. My coping mechanism, “make’em laugh so they’ll love you, accept you, want you around,” was missing the mark.
One of my favorite quotes is by Ram Daas: “We’re all just walking each other home.”
Maybe that’s my walk here on earth, my purpose. Maybe I can take someone else’s hand in their deep, dark despair; even if I must whistle in that dark, I can walk my friend home. We can suffer well together.
It seems that my rough-and-tumble massage therapist Grace wasn’t so much a hydraulic jackhammer as an emergency responder, my rescuer, using the jaws of life.
After all, grace saves.