So this is what a massage is supposed to feel like.
I've had a handful of massages in my life - a couples thingy on our honeymoon (a sort of confusing mish-mash of not-very-relaxing and not-very-romantic), a prenatal massage (nice; hard to get comfortable despite presence of funny donut pillow for stomach), and a couple others here and there - but I've always felt very weird spending upwards of eighty dollars for an hour of what amounts to lavender-scented naptime.
This was worth eighty dollars. The difference between a therapeutic massage and a spa massage is basically that a spa massage focuses on relaxation, while a therapeutic massage focuses on getting to the root of your problem. The bells and whistles are gone - no robes, candles, or pretty little extras - but what you get is a massage that targets exactly what's wrong (as an example, the pre-massage questionnaire is fairly extensive). I went in with no specific problems other than the fact that I tote around a very large seven-month-old all day and have the aches and pains that come along with that - and I left feeling not just chilled-out...but better.
If you go to Eastside Massage Therapy, ask for Sarah. She is amazing, and she is the only massage therapist I have ever found who is capable of getting around my very annoying tickle reflex (as she said, "even ticklish people deserve massages").
