Touched

To know me is to know that I’m pretty vocally anti-hug. Well, not anti-hug, exactly: more like pro-choice, touch-wise. If I offer you a hug, it’s because I genuinely want one. If I don’t, or if I politely but firmly decline an embrace, it’s not personal. This is my thing, not yours.

I instinctively shudder at the mere thought of touching a—gasp!—stranger, so it follows that I’ve always very actively avoided massage, which is inarguably among the touchiest of activities. Over the years, friends and health-care providers alike have expressed astonishment at my failure to take advantage of the fact that my extended insurance covers it. For these well-intentioned touchies, it’s nigh impossible to understand how one could leave this benefit untouched. For me, it was nigh impossible to understand why you’d allow someone’s fingers prolonged access to your naked body. I thus swore up and down that I would never bare my skin to even the most lauded RMT.

In June, however, my husband was informed that his insurance plan was going to change to a new one a month or so later, at which point our benefits would reset. Determined not to waste a single dollar of the old plan, I immediately began strategizing. True to form, I took this as a challenge, and with the enthusiasm that inevitably overtakes me when I have an arbitrary goal to reach, I tackled it with the energy I should rightfully reserve for stuff of actual consequence. First, I arranged to have a chunk of dental work taken care of before the looming insurance-turnover deadline. Next, I booked a few physio appointments. As I surveyed the document outlining the benefits currently available to me and looked for my next target, my eyes lingered on a category I’d hitherto written off. There it was: massage therapy. Ever the completionist, I knew that I’d regret not making a dent in those RMT dollars if I didn’t try a session or two.

Not to suggest that my sole motivation for exposing my body and soul to the world of massage was that I wished to turn spending as much of the extended-insurance company’s money as was possible (and ethical and responsible) into a pointless competition against no one and nothing but my better judgement. Rather, I was also inspired by my recent decision to approach certain things with greater curiosity and openness to the idea that my self-narrative regarding what I do and don’t like might not always be entirely accurate. I tend to generalize some experiences and attitudes without first considering that I’m a changing person with changing preferences and needs and/or that just because something’s true in one context doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily true in another. Extrapolating from this, the fact that I recoil from casual touch and felt nauseated the entire duration of the only professional massage I’d ever had didn’t render present-day me enjoying—or tolerating, at least—a professional massage outside the realm of possibility.

I did an excessive amount of Googling before landing on an RMT who seemed like she’d be a good fit. I’d developed a list of criteria that the person I’d pay to touch me would need to satisfy: well-trained; focus on neurological issues; professed commitment to respecting boundaries; located in a wheelchair-accessible clinic closeish to my building; and a few other very idiosyncratic items that I won’t include here as to not come off as being even weirder than you’ve already figured out I am. Perhaps a little part of me hoped that the specificity of my requirements would provide a convenient excuse for not exhausting that benefit money I’d become so fixated on. Who could fault me, after all, if I were full of will but lacking a way? When I stumbled on this RMT’s profile, then, I was in equal parts stunned, excited, intrigued, and disappointed. There was no denying that she appeared—in theory, anyway—to be an ideal candidate. Having Googled myself into a corner, I reserved a slot.

I pushed the looming massage out of my mind until it was too late to cancel without incurring a fee. This is one of my go-to strategies when I have an appointment I’m nervous about since even fantasizing about skipping or rescheduling is akin to visiting a fabric store and telling myself I’m just there to window shop. In other words, exposing myself to the temptation will 100% result in a clear calendar, a pile of beautiful material, and a guilty conscience.

And so I managed to get myself to the clinic and wait my turn without making a last-minute roll for the exit. I was warmly greeted by the RMT, who was professional, considerate, and gentle. We agreed on some treatment goals, I transferred to the bed, and she got to work, checking in with me every few minutes. I surprised myself by answering “yes” with complete honesty every time she asked if I was comfortable. It was thoroughly tolerable. Mildly pleasant, even.

What truly astounded me was how relaxed I felt afterwards. My always-there pain hadn’t disappeared, nor had my dislike of touch, but both were a little less pronounced, too. Though I still wasn’t convinced that I was a massage person, I figured that the potential positives outweighed the low level of discomfort I had experienced, so I booked a follow-up.

Over the course of the next month, I went four more times, hitting my insurance-dollars target right on the nose. Now on a new benefits plan and thus aiming for a new goal, I’ve settled into a twice-a-month schedule.

If you’ve slogged along and made it to this paragraph, which I swear will be the last, it’s probably because you’re wondering what my point is, waiting for me to provide some earth-shattering insight. I hate to disappoint you, but I’m in the same boat. I suppose that the closest I can come to providing an answer—to you as well as to myself—returns to that larger self-challenge to be more open-minded when and where and in ways it makes sense to do so. Professional massage seemed a relatively low-risk way to test my limits in terms of touch. Other experiments in this realm, though, have confirmed that in most circumstances, I remain a touch-hesitant individual. And you know what? That’s perfectly OK. There’s nothing wrong with having boundaries and respecting them. There’s also nothing wrong, however, with a little self-examination from time to time, especially when it results in a new method of pain management. Paid for, I can’t help but add, by a extended-benefits plan.