Renewal

I have discovered the Thai Massage Parlour. 
There are not many parts of me that aren't currently aching.
It's this bitterly cold winter we are experiencing, my coldest ever since moving to Melbourne in 1996. It's miserable. We have a permanent car park at Cabrini Hospital because we are all dropping off like flies. Runny nosed, coughing and spluttering, dizzy, aching old flies. 
And that is WITH the flu vaccination. Les Miserables. 
That's us.



I don't go there very often but I very much like this little place in Church Street. It's very clean and the ladies are very sweet and very efficient. The only down side is that you can't claim it back on your Health Insurance .. but after only receiving $68 back from BUPA with my Top Cover after my Carpal Tunnel Surgery (which cost around 3K) my expectations are no longer very high.

Massage. I always battle with it a little. A complete stranger in a lightly lit room caressing your almost naked body with their strong oily hands. This place is particularly interesting - as you don't actually see which of the masseuses has worked on you until the chop chop chop chop chop chop chop big ending. Ta Da!

My little home is on the market. The cutest little house in the Village. 
Well I like to think so. 
Emotions are high and I am struggling with letting go. So many happy memories and so many sad ones. But my very first home nonetheless.
I think I have a stomach ulcer. 
That's how anxious I am.



http://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-vic-yarraville-120333193




Last week in the midst of my lurgy - tired, aching and emotional I visited the massage parlour. Cocooned on the warmth of the table in the lightly fragranced room I put my head through the hole on the bed and looked at the bamboo bowl on the floor beneath brimming with pebbles and pretty flowers.
The soothing massage began and before too long I was wondering how many tears, apart from my own had that strategically placed bamboo bowl collected. 





Spring will be here soon - a time for renewal. And that is exactly what I am going through.
After paying my $500 excess for my Carpal Tunnel surgery I have decided I need to get my money's worth!
Who would have thought that I, with a lifelong fear of hospitals would willingly sign up to go another round. Well I did. And I have. Not even I have managed to get my head around this concept yet!
After my Mum's diagnosis with Bowel Cancer 2 years past I was advised to have a routine colonoscopy.
Yep. OK. Sure. No worries. Roger that. Not!
But when several of my colleagues and friends spoke of how gorgeous the gastroenterologist was, well I thought I better go see for myself! Well he was lovely, but let's not forgot the Anaesthetist! Phoar!

I won't go on about how ghastly the lead up was, I am sure everyone knows that, but I will say how enjoyable that little stay in hospital was. Everyone was so kind, it didn't smell hospitally, everyone knew someone who knew someone, almost a social occasion! I had a beautiful sleep with no tossing and turning (at least that I know about!), the drip in my hand didn't hurt or bruise, and I came out of it with a clean bill of the bowel - plus lunch! How reassuring.




So buoyed by this experience I am NOT stopping there.
The 50,000 km overhaul has begun. The list is being checked off. Gosh until you even make a list you have no idea how many girly bits there are that require maintenance. Blimey.
That $500 excess will be money well spent.

I went to have my chronically aching shoulder x-rayed. 
It has ached for 8 years

now. Without reprieve. The Chinese would say from the load I have carried. The Physiotherapist would say because I need to just sit up straight! The Chinese are so polite! While I was sitting in the waiting room of my new favourite place, Cabrini Hospital, busily diverting my attention by playing on my iPad in case I saw something yukky, the nurse came out and called Mr James. I thought she said Ms James so up I jumped. But then I realised she said Mr James and I thought - with a sense of wonder really - that had my Dad lived, Mr James, he would be this elderly man walking towards the nurse right now. 
It will be 37 years tomorrow since we said goodbye to him. 08/08/78
That was indeed another cold winter. I found it very poignant that the last place I saw him alive was in a hospital - which created so much fear throughout my life, and yet here I now was, with another Mr James and feeling very much at peace. 
Renewal.

The Real Estate Agent called me this afternoon. He asked me how I was feeling. I told him the truth - overwhelmed with anxiety. He said don't be worried. 'We' are tracking quite nicely. He said if he's not worried then I shouldn't be worried either.
But I am.
I am no different to anyone else. I want the best price for the cutest little house in Yarraville so I can continue with my renewal.
Without debt. A big ask I know.
But I really want this. I'm putting it out there.
Maybe Dad can help me.

I lost quite a few tears into that pretty bowl under the massage bed that day and I am sure in the next few weeks I'll lose a whole lot more.
The overwhelming sense of being touched, the sadness of the past and the hope for the future. 
If that is what renewal takes, then I am up for it. 
Here's to warmer days to come.
And maybe just around the corner.