Humble Thyself

Just catching up on my posts.  Here is another one written for Morning Out for Moms in 2017.

My first ever massage was anything but relaxing.  It was while we were away on a tropical vacation with my husband’s family.  My son was about 2, and it was time for me to have a time out to pamper myself.  I decided to take in a massage at the hotel’s luxury spa – it would be the first time I ever had a professional massage!

To give you some context, I have to tell you a little bit about this hotel.  Over the years the clientele has become somewhat more “common”, but in those early years of going there, we were among some of the world’s finest.  My sister-in-law has run into the likes of Luke Perry, and at one time Halle Berry was in a suite at the hotel while we were there.  Jennifer Love Hewitt once stopped in the hall to tell me that my son, who was in a stroller at the time, was a very cute baby!  This mixing with the rich and famous is actually quite humbling.  Every year that we are blessed to go on this trip, my sister-in-law and I have to mentally prepare ourselves for the initial venture out to the pool.  There we are – in all our commonness – with our pastey white Canadian hibernation skin – having NOT had access to a personal trainer, private chef and a nanny – standing in the pool area feeling quite a bit like an outsider.  We’ve learned to laugh at ourselves, love ourselves, and happily sip at our pina coladas, eating our kids’ leftover French fries while we watch our kids playing with the other kids and their nannies, while their moms are at the fitness center or taking in a yoga class, or shopping, or whatever it is they do.

However, in an effort to fit in, sometimes we find ourselves trying to just act “wealthy”.  This is not for the faint of heart.  My sister-in-law and I are desperately and ridiculously immature, and end up in situations that usually just have us in fits of giggles.  VERY undignified.

So back to the first massage visit.  I was still at a point in my life where I was sort of just trying to fit into this rich hotel crowd.  I didn’t want to let on that I had never had a massage, or that I was completely unfamiliar with the procedures at a spa!  I had never been at a spa before!  I had done some research, asking my sister-in-law and mother-in-law what they do for a massage.  Do you bathe first?  Do you wear underwear?  Do they give you a robe?  They assured me that I could bathe there, and that I would get a robe, and that ultimately it was up to me whether I wore underwear or not, but that I would be covered up, so I didn’t have to.

When I checked into the spa that morning, the lady at the desk asked me if I had ever had a massage before. “Yes”, I kinda half-lied.  I had many massages before – from Ryan – but never at a spa.  I didn’t want her to think I was underprivileged or something – I don’t even remember why I felt I had to lie.  All I can think of now is pride.  She showed me the changing room, and gave me a robe.  Then she showed me the massage room I was to go into, and instructed me that I could just lay face down on the bed and the therapist would bring in a warm blanket to cover me with.

She then left me to get ready, so I changed.  It was at that point that I had to make my underwear decision.   Wear it or not?  Well, once again with that pride, I didn’t want to seem like a newbie to the massage scene, and felt that the veterans probably all go commando, so I would too. Off came the undies, and I slid into the fluffy white spa robe.  Next it was into the massage room.  I closed the door, hung my robe on the hook, and then took a look at the bed.  Hmmmmmmm… I was supposed to lie facedown on the bed, but…there was nothing to cover me up!  I looked around the room, thinking there would be a folded sheet or something there (something like going to the Dr., and you are left to cover up your bottom half with the slightly too-small paper sheet).  There was nothing.  I felt my heartrate starting to rise, thinking that at any moment the therapist would knock on the door and I wouldn’t be ready!  Ack!  Was I supposed to wear my robe?  No, the other lady had clearly showed me where to hang it up.  Then I figured, okay, I guess women like me are just comfortable with their bodies and they just lay there with their naked bottoms up in the air until they are covered with the warmed blanket.  Yes, I told myself – just be confident – just be like all those other rich, personal trainer toned, private-chef fed moms out there!  So, that’s what I did.  I laid myself prone onto that masseuses table, with my naked rear in the air LIKE A BOSS.  I feel at this point I should also interject and say that in my more recent massage experiences, there is usually low lighting and soft music playing in the room, and I think that would have made this scenario far more comfortable.  However, I don’t remember music, and I definitely remember that this room was lit with horrible fluorescent lighting, that no doubt did nothing to flatter my cellulite dimpled white Canadian butt cheeks. 

In hindsight, I can never understand why I didn’t just go back to the change room and grab my panties, or why I didn’t go back to the front desk and ask where the sheet was to cover up.  But looking back I realize that my stubborn pride to appear as someone I was not was the only reason.

Within a few moments the therapist knocked on the door to let me know they were entering.  And entered HE did!  This was possibly the most shocking moment to me.  I never thought about whether the therapist would be male or female!  I just assumed a female the whole way through, and had no idea I could make that request when I booked my appointment!  He was short and stout, with a balding head and a beard.  I do not know whether it made it worse or better than if he had been more like a GQ model, and I also don’t know for sure that it would have been better if HE had been a SHE.  Either way, the damage was done.  He entered the room, and was equally if not moreso surprised to see my bottom end in the air as I was trying to remain calm, and appear as though this was a completely normal situation in my life.  I am not quick to panic, and my self-preservation mode kicked in, so I’m pretty sure I just smiled at him.  “Um, there should be a sheet underneath you there ma’am, to cover up with”.  Well, ladies, what would YOU have done?  I did exactly what I thought a fake-it-till-you-make-it confident, rich, comfortable in her own skin woman would do in that moment.  I leapt off the bed, and stood there fully undressed, sucking it in to save my life, plastering on a fake smile, trying my best to look like this was completely okay with me.  The therapist quickly untucked the sheet that covered the bed, and let me slide under while he held it up like a wall between us.  I chose not to say much, in hopes that he would perhaps also think I was not able to speak English – and that if I was perhaps European that would surely explain all of my previous actions. 

Needless to say, I was completely mortified, and that 90 minute massage felt like an eternity.  I couldn’t WAIT to get out of there!

So what is the moral of the story?  Well, for one, don’t pretend to be someone you are not!

And two, here is Proverbs 11:2 from the New Living Translation:

"Pride leads to disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom".

Or from the Message: "The stuck-up fall flat on their faces, but down-to-earth people stand firm".

Had I just put aside my pride, and asked for some help, I would have been made wiser and would not have been caught with my pants down, flat on my face.