And, I must admit, making extra money gets me to salvate enough that I’m probably drooling a bit. But, having this day off does give my body, arms, hands, and back a chance to breathe and not hate me as much.

My weekend had me at 90% booked for the day so I was working hard for my money! Luckily, my clients I had were about medium to firm pressure which is just like perfection for me. Not too light that I can’t find where their tension is, the pain, and I can’t work things out, but not so hard that I’m mainly sweating my butt off. I feel like I can relax with them in the massage and at the end of it especially I can just stop thinking, stop wondering what’s next, and massage with a clear head. If the pressure is extremely tense it’s hard for me to breathe and I can’t relax if I can’t breathe during a massage. I mainly tense up, hold my breath, and switch to my elbow if my hands start aching.

It’s not as easy as it sounds with switching to my elbow. I seem to have a very pointy elbow and generally reserve it for deep tissue massages (mainly guys) who I can’t deliver the pressure with thumbs, fists, and fingers alone. I should be using it more often, but have always felt uncomfortable with transitioning to it. I don’t know why I have such a complex against it, yet I do.

Nothing quite compares to the moment where my head clears at the end and I’m just massaging.

I’m not thinking about my lunch, I’m not thinking about my next client, I’m just breathing deeply and feeling and trying to connect with where they have tension. It’s a moment where I listen to my body to see where the strain is, adjust it, and keep going to stay my most relaxed. I’m also not watching the clock, yet at the same time I’m in tune to it. This is where five minutes of the massage will feel like just one minute, and you can kind of get lost in the moment of what you’re doing.

I never used the money to buy something immediately afterwards, such as candy, like a normal kid probably would. I had a bank account when I was around 12 years old so I’d go to the bank and put my money in there. I might save the money up over years and buy that thing I really wanted. When I was just a kid I saved the $25 I’d get for Christmas and my birthday over several years to finally get $200. I went to a tack shop and saw this horse stable for plastic horses, and bought the little wooden stable with my money I had saved up.

But, besides those rare moments, I don’t allow myself to get anything. I live like I’m poor, and log my money that I spend from the cash I use, to my debit/credit card, and write it down in this file I have on my computer. I categorize everything I spend money on, from food, to groceries,  and every little thing I might spend my money on. There is a separate file I have for my monthly bills and how much I spend on them.

My fiancée definitely doesn’t do this, and I’m the only one I know who does keep such a money tally. He works a lot differently when it comes to money, he is not a saver, and this is something I’m more than aware of. It’s one of the things my parents constantly fight about, one spends more, one tends to save more, and the one who does the spending gets yelled at every time there is a new receipt on the counter. I don’t want me and the man to ever be like this, so when he spends his money, I don’t attack him and try to bite his head off. It’s difficult because my first reaction is to chastise him for it, but I try to stop before I can act out that reaction.

I don’t want him to lie and hide what he does with his money because I’m going to come down hard on him every time he buys something. It’s just I have such a complex about money and I find myself planning ahead for when I don’t have a job and I’m getting nervous about it … of course. I’m trying to stay calm and not revert back to my crazy ways, but the thought of being unemployed when I have to move away certainly doesn’t help the situation.

This manager laughed and then told me something that was interesting, “It’s all or nothing with you, Sarah.”

 I always knew this might be true about me, but didn’t think much of it besides that. It’s almost like having an addictive personality, which my fiancée readily admits to so he’s careful around certain things, such as drinking. When I’m extremely passionate about something I definitely research it, practice, and try to better myself at it or at the knowledge I have of it. I remember the exact year I absolutely went all or nothing with my career. Funny enough, it was after my first raise and after that I made my crazy attempts at retail and tried to push myself even more at what I do.

I basically jump into the deep end, head first, with something I’m really passionate about it. I don’t quite dip my toes in, wade into the shallow end and then kind of get myself over to the deep end. Nah, I like to throw myself completely into it as deep as I can go.

The man can be like that with his job and he’s all in with his job position where he is moved down and has people underneath him. He’s a real manager because he is dealing with directing, doing raises, and taking care of people who are a part of his ‘team.’ The fiancée is really excited about it which is nice to see because he had been so miserable for at least a year with his job up here.

I want him to be excited, motivated, and enjoy what he does again. I really want my fiancée to give his all to what he does like I try to do each and every day that I work. It just feels more like fun than working if you are putting all of your cards on the table, and you are going all in with your career. You don’t want to give yourself too much where you’re exhausted, but just enough to get excited about all your accomplishing through your hard work.

I couldn’t ask for a better partner in life, and I’m happy the move with his job will make him happier. It might just be a good start with me and change in my life. It’s just right now everything feels like it’s falling apart, I don’t know how long I can handle moving back in with my folks. It takes that time away to see how things are, and I’ve gotten used to the comfort, love, and happiness I have living with my fiancée. I love him because he knows what to do when I feel lost, sad, and he makes us talk things out even though I want to bury myself in a corner and just wake up the next day. I don’t want to talk about things, I want to just stew and then force myself to get over it, yet he makes me face the demons with him by my side. Life feels fuller with him, yet I can still be my own individual.

He makes me breakfast on the morning of his birthday even though I was a money ho and picked up the day of his birthday to work. The man understands when I’m late every day from work and has dinner ready for me and open arms for me to collapse into when I step in the door. It’s also the feeling I have when I’m with him and we may just be watching TV together or I’m playing on my lap top and he’s watching TV in the living room. It’s this sense of peace I have when we are together. It feels like ‘home‘ just being in a space with him.

We aren’t the perfect couple, we’ve had our disagreements, and we can never be perfect. But, what makes me happy even when we do disagree is that we don’t hold grudges against each other. We talk about what happened, we get it out in air, and we move on. As a couple we don’t manipulate each other like I so often see my folks doing. It makes me so happy to know that even growing up with two people married who don’t get along, and don’t seem to love each other, that I can find love and keep it in my life.

It makes me happy that I can find someone to love and I can work through what I’ve grown up with. I can be affectionate even though my family never does that. I can say I love him every day even though the ‘I love you’ is never spoken with my family. He makes me want to be a better person, and to realize the mistakes I make and correct them to be a better partner.

I told my mother and father when I was molested. Nothing was done about it, it’s just water under the bridge.

It’s happened since I was five years old, seven years old, through my teens, by my grandfather, and more. The men doing it have varied but it feels like it’s been my entire life. I would never admit it later on and if I did, and if I did come to my parents about my experiences, I was wrong. Somehow it didn’t happen, somehow I asked for it, nothing was done about it. A fear of men grew inside of me over the years, I refused to date, I was scared to. I didn’t know what would happen if I was alone with a guy. I’d get panic attacks being alone with guys and I’d need to get out of the room.

I talked today about how my grandfather not only talked sexually about me, and touched me inappropriately, he also said inappropriate and wrong things about my mother. This happened all throughout my teens and on. She responded quickly that I had lied. It couldn’t be true, I was lying and over-exaggerating. I couldn’t stomach it, I left my mom at the table and walked quickly away with my brother.

I asked my brother, “You do believe me don’t you? Why would I lie about something like that? Why would I ever make that up?” And he said my mom just has this disillusion with her father. That she’d never admit how horrible he was, and she sees things as she wants to see them. My past, my sexual abuse still haunts me to this day like skeletons in my closet. I don’t like remembering what happened to me, I like even less sharing what happened to me. And I share it just to be told I’m wrong, I’m lying, I’m over-exaggerating. Well, I’m writing this post to say I’m not doing any of those things.

I hate to have these memories, I’d love to pretend it never happened to me … over and over again. But it did. I don’t know how I ever made it through, how I survived to become the person I am today. Right now I feel crushed, and destroyed, thinking about how I keep screaming about my experiences and it’s like my voice is silenced.

I had a guy sexually assault me in my 20′s. I kept on telling him to stop, I kept saying no, I was never as scared as I was going through those moments. He wouldn’t leave, and kept on trying to take off my shirt, and my pants, and I was so terrified I couldn’t even find my voice to scream. I just kept saying no, and stop, so many times, and luckily he did leave. And luckily I had the strength to fight him off, but if I didn’t, he would have done more than sexually assault me. I told my family the next day what happened. They said it was my fault, and why hadn’t I just screamed, and why hadn’t I told him just to leave? That it was my weakness why he kept going and I just must be over-exaggerating.

The past is not just the past. These scars from my experiences will never completely heal, and telling me they didn’t happen is like reopening a wound all over again.

I like her, she’s got a rough exterior and she has a tough outer shell to keep people away from her but deep down she is a nice person who gets stepped on so she tries to be tougher than she is. I can understand this, and appreciate this, because I play the same game. I’ve been hurt before, I’m too nice, and care too much about people, so I get hurt a lot.I have been a sensitive child and adult since before I could remember. She was the first client ever to write me a little card for our three-year ‘anniversary‘ since we’d been seeing each other.

I gave her a Christmas card and told her the exact same thing she said when she came in with a card. “Just go with it!” She takes a lot of pressure and stuff but I’ve realized with having this guy come in every week who takes the most pressure out of my life that she isn’t as bad as that. I try to listen to my body with her massages and make sure I’m not doing a technique too hard where I might injure myself and I’m happy with her legs and arms she can’t take the same pressure on her back.

My client came in and she told me that she’s moving away. And, I’m not going to lie, I felt like I was going to cry. I started to think about her leaving, and then me leaving, and it was hard not to get emotional. We started the massage and she was saying how she’d miss me and when she decided she was moving she thought about me as her massage therapist as one of the reasons it wouldn’t be so easy. Well, I thought of her with my move and how devastated and mad she’d be that it’d be going. I guess it’s easier now with us both leaving but I can’t tell her until I actually have to tell my work. It’s just I have to keep it secret from any clients, co-workers, and any one I work with.

My client has gone through a lot. She’s going to be moving because she’s getting a divorce from her husband, she has an adopted son who has been verbally and physically abusive to her, and there’s even more than that. She’s come in my room and cried and she is a tough little cookie. I hugged her on that day, even though I don’t hug, because my heart broke for her and I knew it was just her being at her breaking point.

She’s a little rough around the edges, but with getting to know her after three years I’ve gotten really close to her. I told her I just want what makes her happy and I think this is a good start for her … I’m just going to miss her.

A client shows up really late, I take them and give them the full hour massage, my next client shows up on time but I’m late from the first client so now I’m behind. And running behind means you don’t drink, you don’t have time for anything, let alone having a lunch. Lately I’ve been able to at least eat something in the 5-10 minutes between the next client but this wasn’t true with today. I ended up going straight through my shift without eating anything.

I get a little crazed when I work really hard, massage for a long time, and hardly have time to even chug water, let alone sit down for a lunch. So, before I left I heated myself up something, sat down, and shoved my face.

My clients were really good, I sold a really good amount of retail, but I am just exhausted. I picked up yesterday so I’m going on a lot of days and I’ve been booked up every single day. Luckily, I ate breakfast this morning and had some tea before I left but it just felt better to finally eat. My day tomorrow doesn’t look too booked, yet last Tuesday it was the same thing and I ended up filling up. I’m feeling kind of worn out and I’m looking forward to my days off to re-cooperate.

Going from a tall twig to a thick trunk wasn’t easy and I was always angry about my weight. I was angry about my family pointing it out, teasing me and making fun of me every time I ate in front of them. I still dread eating in front of people to this day, and I can get very defensive on my lunch at work because I’m prepared for someone to start something.

Not eating was always rewarded, so at one point in my life, at my most miserable and depressed, I tried to stop eating. I lost 30-40 pounds within a few months and dropped down to a size 9-10. Even at my ‘skinniest’ I couldn’t get myself to single digit pant size and my mother was praising me and saying how great I looked with all the weight off. When I lost 10-15 pounds recently and kept it off the healthy way she even said to me, “You can’t possibly want to lose only 10-15 pounds! Aren’t you going to try to lose more weight than that?” So, to this day she’s pushing me about my weight, how it isn’t good enough, how I need to lose more.

It’s given me a complex … obviously. Just recently one of my co-workers was talking about how she went to someplace for a drink and the person serving it was so overweight, and they must have been so lazy that somehow she got sick from the drink. I don’t even know how this adds up, but it did for her. My fiancée is on the heavier side, and I fell in love with him that way. Even though he is heavier, I would never call him lazy, especially at his job. He works too much, bringing his work home with him lots of times. He seems to always come down on himself for his weight, and looking back on his child pictures he still sees a fat kid when I see an adorable little boy.

I want to take off someone’s head if they ever talk about his weight in front of me in a negative way. I was always called ‘big girl’ at school when I wasn’t home schooled on top of thunder thighs, and other horrible names. My first ‘boyfriend’ was verbally and mentally abusive with calling me names and making fun of me every time he saw me. I hear my fiancée talk badly about himself because of his weight and I hear constantly, every day, how the girls at my work want to starve themselves to a skinnier body. There’s pressure from all sides to not be happy with myself as I am today. But, I know I want to keep my weight off in a healthy way, exercise with yoga and the tone ball because it’s good for my muscles, as well as my breathing and mind.

I don’t ever want to be in that place where I am so miserable and someone is making me feel that way. I don’t ever want any person, whether it’s my family, or a stranger, have that power to make me feel so horrible that I just don’t want to eat. I don’t ever want to be in that place again, but every time I look in the mirror, I can’t appreciate the person staring back at me. I pick out the imperfections, and go “yeah, yeah” to every time my fiancée calls me beautiful, and pretty, which is every day. It’s just a difficult journey and balance of taking care of myself without wanting to make myself into a stick again.

Why can’t they do special mood lighting for when you go clothes shopping? Yes, I know, then you buy it thinking it’s great and see it with good lighting and can’t stand it so you return it, but I wouldn’t be against softer lighting.

We enter the clothes arena and there are so many different selections and we end up getting tracked down by a sales person. She asks my mom what we are looking for and she pretty much answers her with, “We don’t have a clue what we are doing. She is going to have a wedding in April and we don’t know what she should wear!” The sales girl’s eyes light up as soon as she hears the infamous word ‘wedding’ to which I say that I hate clothes, dresses, and don’t want to look like terrible. She suggests a skirt and a blouse I would wear to an interview, but not to my wedding. And, when her suggestions fall on deaf ears she says for us to maybe go up to the upper level where the plus sized is, for 14 and up.

I mumble under my breath how I must look huge today and get as far away as I can from the skinny, tiny, sales associate that I possibly can. We head up to the top floor and already I feel not-that-great and just down about trying on dresses. But, I truck on and try on about six different dresses. One makes me look like a mermaid, and not in a good way. It has literal scales and it tapers down to make me look like my legs are a tail. Another dress washes me out, another one is okay but mainly black with sparkles, and the best one I found was this pretty teal dress.

As you can tell, I do not want a wedding dress in the conventional sense. I want a dress I can wear to my wedding that has color and looks good, and I can possibly wear to the fiancée’s work outings when I need something fancy. I want something I can wear more than once, and I want it to be pretty and fit me well and not be uncomfortable. The dress I liked wasn’t in my size and didn’t quite work as well as I wanted, but the color was very pretty on and didn’t make me look like I had just been dragged out of the ocean.

The fiancée keeps reminding me how I said I didn’t want a dress because I hate how they make me look, and how now I’m saying I do. I don’t think that I want to wear a pant suit to my wedding, or a skirt and blouse I’d wear to an interview.  I’m sure his family expects me to wear a traditional white wedding dress, especially his grandmothers, but it just isn’t me.

And, after seeing myself in that full lighting I’ve decided to work out at home. I’ve brought out the yoga mat, the big tone ball, and today I brought out the stepper and did that for 20 minutes. I’m going to try to be better and stretch, do some yoga, and try my stretches on the tone ball hopefully every day. I have to do something to deal with this client who sees me every week and takes every bit of strength I have. I will not let my body break down because of one client, I’m going to try to make it stronger, and massage smarter. Plus, maybe I can get myself down to a smaller size before the wedding. I doubt it, but it can’t hurt to try to tone myself and working out should help me with my endurance with massaging.

Remember how I said we found a wedding band for the fiancée? Well, turns out we don’t and they didn’t have it in his size. So, we are now on a search for finding him a wedding band he’ll like while mine is being custom made and will hopefully turn out just perfect.

I don’t know if I can quite wrap my head around moving yet. And, I can’t wrap my head around even more that I’m moving back in with my folks, and he’s going to be moving down to his job without me. But, I have a wedding to pay for, a honeymoon to pay for, and I need to keep my job for as long as I possibly can. Which is why me moving is the big secret and I’m a professional at keeping it. That’s not to say it isn’t easy, it’s hard for me every day and on certain days its even worse. And, my mom said today how she doesn’t want to be ex-communicated from my work as a client because I’m leaving.

I swear, everything is always about her. Yes, I am so sorry that you will have to go to my work to get your haircut and you won’t get a discount and your afraid they are going to treat you bad because I’m leaving. I highly doubt that they would do that, but really, mom?  They will end up holding a grudge against me, not you, because you obviously don’t work for them.

And, all she is thinking about, talking about, listening to is herself with planning a trip in June. That is all my mother focuses on is basically travel planning and the planning she does is the most excitement she gets, even when she’s on a trip she’d rather be looking ahead to the next thing. She’s trying to push her weight around with my wedding planning but that’s not happening. It’s small, we have our own idea of what we are doing, and my mom wanted everyone to be in one apartment and plan where they are staying. His sister has a place she wants to stay at, my brother probably wants to stay separately, me and him want a hotel to ourselves, so everyone is going to be staying at separate hotels and that is totally fine.

The fiancee and I still have to figure out where we are going for lunch after the wedding down in the city. But, it’s something he and I should figure out, and my mom is researching that, the vacation, and everything else all at once sometimes. I’m the only one who travels with her because she likes to have things her way and I just go with the flow. I know I’m not exactly a planner myself, and never have been, so I can’t understand her fascination and obsession with it.