Happy clients

are throwing gobs of money at me this week, it seems. It's about time. Yesterday a stressed-out new client said I'd given her the best massage she'd ever had, re-booked for a session and a half, and is telling everyone she knows. One of my regular clients had me over for an outcall, confessed his girlfriend troubles, and overtipped. Instead of the anticipated $65 I made $320, which was awfully nice since today, after paying bills, my bank account is down to the low triple digits.

Both of these clients had massages with Other Therapists while I was out of town, and they both said that I was the Best, that Other Therapists are okay, maybe, but energetically 'vacant.' I knew this already but it's nice to hear it.

It is particularly nice for me to have lots of people in my life who come to me, tell me their troubles, I do something to help, and then they PAY ME AND GO AWAY. This works. This is functional. Dysfunctional is having them tell me their troubles, accept two-hour massages without giving one back, let me cook for them, listen to them complain and whine and blame me for shit, insult my body and my taste, then pick a fight and storm off in a petulant huff, finally convinced that their problems are solved by eradicating me from their life. This used to be known as a 'relationship.' No wonder I got so tired.

Someday I would like to have somebody rub my back for two hours, just because they love me unconditionally and enjoy working the knots out. I've been doing unto others in this respect for eight years now, and nobody has taken the hint.

For now I'm practicing NOT giving free massages to people I might consider dating. It sets up a paradigm which I wish to avoid now at all costs. As I look back on my personal history, I see that I spent an awful lot of time and energy trying to heal people surreptitiously, so that they would be healthy enough to love me back. This is, of course, wrong and bad and doomed to failure. Stop, stop, stop.

But matters are complicated by the fact that I actually enjoy giving two-hour massages to my boyfriends. Withholding love and nurturing is painful, too. At least it's painful for me. It doesn't seem to have particularly bothered all those people I'm considering deleting from my Yahoo! address book, which is why, in this New Year, I revel in my solitude.