Call Me Pancake

Photo by Simon HUMLER on Unsplash

I can’t stress it enough, but I love massages! I make sure I get one when I need one. Sometimes even twice or thrice a month.

I’ve tried it all: Swedish, Shiatsu, Traditional Hilot, Thai, Cupping (Ventosa), Lymphatic drainage, Myofascial, Deep-tissue and my favorite: Combination massage! I’m lucky to be in an area dotted with massage places I can choose from. The services vary per place though, and I’ve had the worst experience in some. Good thing that there’s a good one which is just a block away from our street with skilled massage therapists and this is where I’ve been going for several months now.

I can no longer recall how old I was when I started getting massages, but I remember when a masseuse would drop by the house to work on me and my mom. I never liked home service massages for various reasons, so I don’t enjoy it as much. For one, I don’t get the relaxing ambiance when I’m home with all the noise and the distractions. I always try out new places if I could and see which ones I’d like.

Of course I only get full-body massages from women therapists or practitioners, because such massages are usually done topless and just in my panties. The only time I got a (professional) massage from a guy was during a chair massage therapy and it was mostly him assisting with the stretching. 

I’m not a difficult person to give a massage to. I can take hard kneading and a lot of stretching because I have a high pain tolerance. I don’t have many requests on how I’d want it, but I don’t like a lot of chit-chats while having one. I have had experiences where the massage therapist almost told me her sad life story, but I’m too polite to shush her.

Many of the massage therapists tell me that they like working on me because I have such soft body. Sometimes I think it’s an underhanded comment, which means my muscles are flaccid and flabby, not firm (think of Stay Puft Marshmallow Man). But yeah, I’ve been getting a lot on how they love to knead my body because of how soft I am.

Yesterday after work, I went to my current favorite massage place to get a combination massage because my right shoulder and scapula have been hurting for days. The therapist, once again, said she likes it so much massaging me because I’m “malambot” (soft). 

Apart from being fluffy like a pancake, the therapist also said that I’m so flexible. I chuckled at that comment because we all know I’m in my forties now and telling me I’m still “flexible” at this age is such a compliment for me. I always thought I’m brittle, but apparently not. I can now add that to my Tinder profile: Flexible (kidding!).

But yeah, I was so whippy that she got carried away because I was stretched and twisted as if I have a body of a teenager and I was surprised myself that I can still be bent like that. Sure, I can hear cracks while she’s doing it but nothing that I can’t bear. And every time it cracks, I let out an “Ahhh…” — like she’s exorcised seven demons.

A massage at this new place only cost me about PhP500 ($8) and I always make sure to give a decent tip. Some massage places can go to almost PhP1,000 depending on the service you like while spas like The Spa Wellness in Greenbelt can go as much as PhP3,000 depending on the number of minutes and suite booked. I’d probably get one on my birthday as a special gift for myself (and a Karada session too!).

I can’t get over the fact that I’m soft as a pancake and twisty like a pretzel. Eat your hear out, ex- boyfriends! Aren’t you getting hungry?

Catching up

We’re almost into the homestretch of the year and I have less than 10 posts on this blog for 2022. I can’t say I’ve been busy, because I wasn’t, but more like I don’t have the “push” to write something as often as I used to. I tried fighting it for the longest time, but I guess your tita surrendered to quick interactions (or as they call it, microblogging) on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.  

So how have I been?

Well for one, after more than two years, I went back onsite for a limited time last month. IHG experienced an outage at the beginning of September due to a cyber-attack that paralyzed many of our channels. Because of this, we weren’t allowed to access most of our systems and applications at home and was asked to come to the office to work. The first few days were voluntary, so I went willingly, as my workload is piling up and I don’t want to cram once the systems are back.

Then by the middle of the month, they gave everybody a three-days-a-week shift for business continuity. While that was an issue for so many who have already embraced the work-from-home setup, I really have no problems coming to the office. If I were to be honest, I sometimes prefer it, as more than two years of WFH made the line between work and life quite thin. I enjoyed the few times I reported onsite, maybe because I miss how it all was pre-pandemic.

By the end of the month, the office slowly returned its employees to WFH by batches. 80% of the total specialist population had already gone back to WFH, but I happen to be in the remaining 20% who are still required to report to the office five-days-a-week as I’m one of those who was given an IHG equipment. At this point, if you’re just part of the few remaining employees in the office, then it’s hardly fun anymore.

And so by the second week of this month I’m back to working in my house clothes.🙂

***  

It’s already November in a few days but I’m still stressed AF as I was at the beginning of this year. I wish I could tell you why, but oversharing deeply personal things on my blog (or on the internet for that matter) is something I have steer clear from as of late. Perhaps that’s also the reason why I haven’t been writing anything here. I chose to keep a lot to myself instead of blabbing into the void.

Besides, I’m pretty sure most of you who read this are also probably going through something too.

If there’s one thing I can say about it, is that I’m having it really, really tough. 2022 is a year of chronic worrying for me. It’s more difficult because I don’t have anyone to vent it to. I can’t tell my family about it especially if the large chunk of my anxiety comes from them, and the very few friends I have are busy with their own lives. 

I would give anything to go back to 2016 when everything is easy-breezy.

And while there has been some development on other side of things (which again, I’m keeping under wraps as I don’t want to jinx it), it doesn’t change the fact that every day is a mental struggle for me. 

The trouble when you’re stressed at my age is that you feel all sorts of discomfort in your body. Last August I was walking around Glorietta as usual when I slipped and hit the floor butt-first. I wish all I got was a bruised ego from the embarrassment, but after a few days, I felt numbness on the left side of my body, mild face tingling and the index toe on my left foot is moving on its own. 

The doctor asked me to take a CT scan just to rule out TIA or transient ischemic attack (mini stroke). Thankfully, all my tests came out as “unremarkable” and that I have a normal brain scan. The doctor said it’s probably just my high anxiety levels manifesting. Headache, back and neck pains are a common occurrence for me now but the doctors can’t see anything relatively wrong with me. 

I know I have to stop myself from worrying too much to reduce my everyday stress and anxiety. I’m really trying.

Meanwhile, how are you?