The Magical Land of Massages

I must admit, I've been struggling lately, and I have been walking a very fine line between functioning/not functioning. This afternoon, I had a massage. I came to the massage feeling (and I'm sure looking) like the walking dead and carrying with me a feeling that I never knew existed until I had Lyme disease--an exhaustion so gargantuan it felt like if I were to give in to it and rest, it would either swallow me whole, or I would fall into a sleep so deep I would never be able to wake myself up.

It's quite hard to relax when I feel like that but, hey, a massage is a massage and the next thing I noticed, I had let go of my fear of relaxing into the GRANDDADDY of all exhaustion. And. Nothing. Bad. Happened. Nothing swallowed me whole. I didn't fall into a terrifying slumber into which I'm actually typing this post from because I still can't wake up. Lyme exhaustion is a scary thing!

But, back to my massage: I closed my eyes, clicked my heels three times, did some deep breathing and felt myself r-e-l-a-x. I opened my eyes and found myself deep in the woods of a magical place that you can only get to through the hands of a very skilled massage therapist. It was nice there in those woods full of happy things like unicorns and hedgehogs.

Suddenly, I was pulled back to reality by a tiny, scared voice--my voice--talking. Voice, what are you doing?! You're ruining the Magical Land of Massages! But the tiny, scared voice--accompanied by one pitiful, single tear--was so sad and helpless that even I wanted to reach out and hug it. "Do you think I will be sick for the rest of my life?" I heard myself interrupting my massage to ask.

"No. But if you are, I don't think you'll be in pain for the rest of your life."

Unless someone finds a cure for chronic Lyme disease, I won't have an answer to my question, but the answer that my friend gave me in my moment of sadness was enough for me to close my eyes, click my heels three times, and return to the Magical Land of Massages.