After four weeks of vacation in Berkeley, I am finally back home in Crested Butte. Ahhhh, it feels good to be home again…even if the weather here is still erratic and I miss my boyfriend’s crooning.
I love Crested Butte. It’s this magical town out in middle-of-nowhere Colorado. There’s only one paved road leading into town. The nearest ‘bigger’ town is Gunnison, Colorado, which is thirty miles due south. The town of Crested Butte is at an elevation of 8,995 ft. and consists of an eight block by eight block grid filled with colorful homes and unique businesses. The speed limit in town is 15 mph and the only major intersection is a four-way stop. Town bikes definitively outweigh the number of cars here and, if you stand anywhere in town and spin a full 360-degrees, you realize that massive majestic mountains entirely surround you. Each and every view is breathtaking.
Coming from the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, Crested Butte is certainly my idea of heaven. Having always loved the outdoors (camping, fishing, biking and hiking) and growing up amidst the limited landscape and adverse weather of Cleveland, I find Crested Butte to be one big giant playground. Miles and miles of trails and rivers and mountains are available for exploration on a daily basis. The 273 days of sunshine aren’t too bad either. Every day I wonder how I ever managed to stumble upon a place as fitting for me as this.
I often wonder the same thing about massage. How is it that I am fortunate enough to have ended up in a profession as wonderful as massage?
Well, I can tell you it certainly wasn’t from putting my Yale degree to use.
Most people don’t know this, but Yale University is actually a feeder school for massage programs around the country.
No.
Really.
Okay. Not really. Actually, Yale is a feeder for medical school, law school, business school, investment banking, and a variety of other graduate programs and career fields—but massage most definitely is not one of them.
When I went back to Yale for my five year college reunion and told my classmates, most of whom were currently involved in the aforementioned fields, that I had just graduated from massage school, I got some pretty funny looks.
Apparently going to Yale and then going to massage school is not a typical career path.
Back in 2001, I graduated from Yale with a degree in art, specifically in graphic design. I spent the majority of my senior year (with the exception of all the hours logged in the swimming pool) working on graphic design projects, glued behind a computer screen and stuck in a computer lab late at night. Not my idea of fun. As much as I loved graphic design, I really did not prefer the tangible nature of the work.
Around my last month of school I finally began imagining what it would be like to work as a graphic designer on a daily basis. I don’t know why I waited so long to think such things through, it certainly would have been beneficial to imagine such details my sophomore year, back when I picked design as my major, but that’s just how it happened. So, I started to think about working behind a computer at a desk in a cubicle in an office from 9 to 5 every day of the week. And I imagined making artwork for things that I didn’t really care about but had to produce stuff anyhow because that’s what I was getting paid to do. And then I thought about how the fact that you’re taking money for your artwork means that you actually have to give the client what he wants even if you think what he likes is completely hideous and stupid. He’s paying you. You’ve got to do it.
So I said, “To hell with it.” I am not spending a single day of my life working as a graphic designer. Right then and there—before I ever even got started—I quit.
And at the moment, without knowing where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do or who I wanted to be, I made a commitment to finding work that I felt passionate about; work that provided a balanced lifestyle; work that allowed me to be creative and physically active; and most importantly, work that allowed me to help others.
Just like that, I resolved to spend the following five years searching for the perfect job, each year trying something different and new. After five years, I would pick something and stick with it.
If you think I have a laundry list of bodily injuries, just wait until you hear my even longer laundry list of jobs. Ready?
- Year 1: I built houses with the Greater Cleveland Habitat for Humanity as an Americorps National Service Member. My long-standing interest in architecture inspired me to give building homes a shot. While I felt good about helping families, I also learned that construction work is really, really physically exhausting. During that same year I also explored the possibility of becoming a social worker while volunteering with the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center on their 24-hour hotline.
- Year 2: Imagining that I might want to be a teacher like my father, I tutored students with the “I Have A Dream” Foundation of Boulder County while completing a second year of Americorps National Service. I concluded that school systems are inherently frustrating and that it’s hard to fix all the problems that kids’ parents should be taking care of at home.
- Year 3: Thinking that outdoor education might be a better fit, I moved to Crested Butte for the winter and taught snowboarding. Then, wanting some down time from life and some time alone to think things through, I left Crested Butte in the spring to hike the Appalachian Trail. For three months I lived in the woods and walked a total of 1,174 miles (the whole trail is 2,174 miles). Despite endless hours of hiking by myself, I never figured anything out.
- Year 4: I relocated to Bellingham, Washington to live near a guy I met on the trail. I thought about going back to school to become a Naturopathic physician, which led me to work for a short period as a caregiver for senior citizens (this was a pivotal job that initially inspired my interest in massage school—more on that in a moment). Being extremely underpaid as a caregiver—I mean, extremely underpaid….I made about $4 an hour—I returned to Crested Butte and taught snowboarding for a second winter. Then, I moved to Vermont in the spring to apprentice on an organic farm for the summer.
- Year 5: At this point, completely lost and not knowing what else to do with myself, I entered massage school, skeptical that it would actually be something that would turn into a career.
But it did. Almost five years later, with only a few minor detours, I am still happily practicing massage.
As I mentioned before, I initially became interested in massage while working as a caregiver.
I remember my very first client. His name was Charlie. He was dying of cancer and had two weeks to live when I met him. The agency that I worked for assigned me to stay with him overnight at his home and keep him comfortable. He lived in a small house. Closing my eyes now I can still see the burnt orange tile floors and abundance of plants that filled the open living room and kitchen area. Because Charlie could barely move, his bed had been relocated to the living room, making it easier for him to access the bathroom. Bottles of pills and vitamins lined the kitchen counter. A variety of organic foods filled his refrigerator even though he could barely eat or drink. This was a new experience for me—I had never worked so closely with someone dying before.
Charlie slept most of the time I spent with him. Occasionally, when he was awake, we’d listen to jazz music or he’d tell me stories of his life. I looked at the pictures he had hanging on the walls and imagined him as a younger, more vibrant man. He was quite handsome and vaguely resembled a youthful Fidel Castro. I imagined the different places he may have traveled to; the hobbies he had; the relationships he had engaged in. Here he was, now, lying on his deathbed.
The process of his departure was by no means easy or physically comfortable. Even with the concoction of painkillers prescribed by the doctors, it was still obvious that Charlie suffered from a great deal of physical pain. His body often shook viciously with fits of coughing as his lungs ejected phlegm and blood into the tissue in his hands. Sometimes these coughing bouts lasted five to ten minutes and Charlie would be left completely drained from the physical exertion.
My responsibility, as his caregiver, was to make him as comfortable as possible. Not really knowing what else to do during his periods of extreme discomfort, I started rubbing Charlie’s back. I had witnessed his family members doing the same thing and it appeared to help calm him down and ease some of his pain. I think me rubbing his back initially surprised him, but then he would just sit there, on his bed, hunched forward with his head hanging low and say “thank you.”
Rubbing his back was the only thing I could do to let him know that I was right there with him; that I was present to his final moments of life; and that through my touch we were connected as human beings in this inescapable cycle of life.
Charlie passed away a week or so after my last night of working with him. And while I only knew him very briefly, our time together made a lasting impact on my life. Not only did he show me the power of human touch, but as cliché as it sounds, Charlie’s passing confirmed that death comes for everyone at some point. And since you never know when it’s going to come, you’ve got to live it up right now.
So—here I am, back at home in Crested Butte, giving massages and getting massages. Living my dream.
