When We Go Back To Work

One massage therapist’s look into an uncertain future after Covid-19.

At twenty-four years old, I excitedly hold my new massage license in my hands. It just came in the mail. I am shaking as I open the envelope and pull out the light blue, rectangular piece of paper. Slowly, I trace my name printed on it with my finger as if touching it makes it solidify faster as my new reality.

Sitting there, looking at my license, I am also looking out into my future and all the possibilities it holds. Just as if I am sitting on the edge of a ridge, looking out and surveying a vast and beautiful valley. I am on a path. I can go anywhere and do anything. I see, taste, and feel my future before me, designed by this new career.

The year is 1992.

I have been a massage therapist for twenty-eight years, closing out almost three decades. I am no stranger to changes; in our laws, protocols, even in best practices. I have seen many therapists come and go.

What I had not experienced, nor expected, in all this time was a health crisis so large and so serious it brings our massage businesses, as well as our very way of life to a temporary halt.

As many states and governments begin to consider ways in which to reopen, so must we begin to consider returning to work.

When we go back to work it will look and feel different. Maybe it is meant too. Maybe after staying at home for two months, nothing will go back to being exactly the same. Maybe that is a construct of the point, the larger purpose and bigger picture of this whole, goddam exercise.

Maybe, we get to pick and choose what works for us and what does not, what we keep, and what we leave behind. Similar to cleaning out a closet, we take inventory of the clothes hanging there and item by item, decide if they still fit or what requires weeding out. Maybe this is how we adapt and evolve, as individuals and as a profession.

Right now I feel as I did in 1992, sitting on that ridge looking out into my future. Only now, the valley landscape has changed. It is misty and the path to the future is unclear.

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