Service Swap

After a ridiculous couple of months, I wanted to splurge and get massage. Not being of the socio-economic status that typically does that sort of thing, I naturally turned to my masseuse friends for help. Many of these women are full-time moms, part-time massage therapists. They primarily do business for a set list of clients out of their homes, and at a fraction of the cost you’d pay for the same thing at a spa. So, I got to actually afford such lavish pampering within my measly budget, AND give my hard-earned dollars to deserving friends and not elitist spas…pretty great, right?

So I got the massage, and it was absolutely amazing. My shoulders had forgotten what it felt like to be malleable. My soul had forgotten what it felt like to be weightless. I decided right then and there that this blissful clarity needed to happen on a more regular basis.

I asked my friend, and recent miracle worker, how frequently people on average did this sort of thing; you know, the people who actually can do this on a regular basis. Her reply, as I expected, was far more than my wallet could bear.

Weekly. Yes, many people out there get weekly massages. If only we were all so fortunate.

But there was a silver lining to her expensive proposition: a lot of clients work on trade. A massage for yoga classes. For manicures. For hair cuts. For Spanish language lessons. You name it, they trade it, and as she rambled off the list of things she was getting for free, I realized that all of these services sounded pretty wonderful. These were things I could use.

On my drive home I started thinking…what could I trade? Unfortunately, while marketing services are very much in demand, they’re not easily broken into $50-75 units. And to learn to do some of the services my massage therapist friend suggested take way more time and energy than I have to spare right now.

So here is my open-ended question of the day. What would you trade for 60 minutes of stress-busting peace and tranquility?

Making major life choices

People gravitate toward the norm. To what feels familiar. To what they’re used to. Maybe this norm is what their parents did, or what their parent’s parents did. Whatever the case, these individuals live their lives by a checklist that was not created on their own.

But there are also individuals who want to avoid the familiar. Who don’t fit in with the norm, and aren’t into what they’re used to. These individuals are faced with an extremely exhilarating, yet daunting task: to create their own destiny. To forge their own path. To make decisions not only on who they want to be, but how they want to live, and what they hope to get out of life.

These people, in my opinion, are truly artists. And with any blank canvas, sometimes it’s hard to figure out where to start.

The most challenging part about figuring out what you want is the realization that every decision you make now has an affect on where you’ll end up. If you don’t marry during a certain window, or have children at a particular age, those opportunities can truly flash before your eyes and fade into oblivion.

This notion has always scared me. While these choices are not something that I want right now, what if I change my mind?

To help me figure it out, I find myself looking for examples in my friends and family who have accomplished these pivotal milestones…for better or worse.

I look at my great-grandparents who were married for decades. My grandparents who have been divorced for longer than they were ever married. To the ones who have found happiness on their own. I use these people in my life as reference points on what my options are. But for some of the more avant-garde lifestyles, examples are hard to come by.

So here are a couple questions to throw into the cyberspace universe: When did you KNOW how you wanted to spend your life? How you wanted to grow old? And, do you know of any unique circumstances where people were able to find their own happiness?

I welcome your insight….

Street walking

So I have a guilty pleasure lately. I am obsessed with walking down the middle of empty city streets. Something about it is so romantic and beautiful. The dichotomy of living in this city of non-stop chaos and noise, and finding that one isolated pocket of silence, where everything stops and your whole universe makes sense.

I work out a lot of my problems in the middle of the road. Somehow in the stillness, something inside me just clicks. I effortlessly float from one thought bubble to the next, and clear away each resolution to make way for the next.

Like a true junkie, I’ve been seeking out prime thoroughfares to conduct my meditative problem solving. I try to determine whether north-south streets should be favored to east-west ones. Test out which way is ideal on a one-way street.

On this quest for peaceful solitude, I realized it was something I’ve been searching for for quite some time. Living in the city is wonderful in so many ways; however, it leaves much to be desired in the way of personal space and downtime.

So for all my fellow city girls looking to make sense of it all, try to find a place or activity that brings you peace, and hold that time sacred. Keep it for you and only you.