On Wednesday, I called A-1 to make an appointment. I use the word "appointment" loosely, because I don't think I've ever been seen at the time I signed up for, and I don't think she's ever not had a "slot" at whatever time I've requested. Nonetheless, I am not sure what time to ask for on Thursday, so she tells me I'll be there at 5.
Thursday I come home from work long enough to talk to Brian briefly before I head back out again. I've given myself plenty of extra time to get there, and wish I'd made the appointment for a time closer to 4:30. This is the first time I've driven to the clinic from up here, and I am surprised to find myself driving past Georgetown Prep on the way in. As I turn down the street that it's on, I can't remember which corner it's tucked into and drive right past it into a traffic jam. The streets are configured in such a way that turning around and going back the way I came is impossible, so I find a perpendicular street and use my intuition to estimate the right place to turn back. I arrive in the parking lot exactly at 5.
As I walk in, she remembers me and greets me excitedly even though I haven't seen her since winter break, and then only a couple times. She is busy with another family and hustles me back into one of the rooms to wait while she finishes up. I am prepared for this, so I sit and read for about half an hour until she comes in for me.
"Jennifer is back!" she giggles as she bustles around the room getting it ready. She comes and goes from my room a couple more times before she is ready to start "needling" me. (Her word, not mine).
I lay face down on the table and she starts feeling down my back, counting my vertebrae. She pokes the first couple needles in, and I feel myself tense involuntarily as she hits a few pressure points. I have to bite back laughter as the next few needles really really tickle. She reminds me again of what she's told me almost every time I've gone in: being so sensitive on the back indicates that I am closed to the world, that I am too afraid of being vulnerable, that I need to understand that it's really okay to open up to things around me.
After no more than a couple minutes, she is finished putting the needles in and I am left to lay by myself. She puts a sheet on my legs and arranges a couple heat lamps so I don't get cold, turns out the lights, and leaves the room. I feel myself start to relax in spite of the uncomfortable table. As the tension starts to flow away, so my thoughts begin.
I think back to earlier in the day, at the office. One of the guys was telling stories, and I was sitting in the back getting some things finished up. They gave me a hard time about working, so I got up and joined them. The conversation was pretty funny, but I had been really uncomfortable just standing there unsure of what to do with myself, and at one point the guy talking just looked me dead in the eyes and said, very quietly, "It's okay to laugh, you know."
I'm not sure what's happened to make me so tense that I feel vulnerable just from laughing, so he touches a nerve. Brian tells me I worry too much about what people think of me, and he is probably right. I start thinking about Brian, and wondering how he's doing. I don't remeber everything I thought about, except that when the lady came in to get some needles for the next room over I worry that she is there to get me up, but I am not finished thinking.
In reality, I am left to my thoughts for almost 45 minutes. I don't have any big revelations; it's not as though I feel like I particularly need any. I know that recently I've been really tense and anxious around groups of people, and that I've been witholding myself more than usual; I also know that the only thing that needs to change is my choice of action. I feel tingling in my back, as if a weight has been massaged out of me. She comes back in and removes the needles, and rubs something sweet smelling on my back. I sit up, more refreshed than after a night of sleep, and stretch lazily.
As I stand up and get my things, my face breaks out into a smile. I can't help myself; my muscles act of their own accord, it's like that trick where you stand in a doorway and press your arms against the sides really hard for 10 seconds and then you stand up and they drift up all by themselves.
I am a very rational person. I am majoring in a field of study that is nothing more than objective truth; numbers, equations, reasoning, reality. I don't understand acupuncture on any sort of deep level. It makes sense to me that a person's nerves form an interconnected network that, when stimulated in certain ways, can cause a "reset", or something. I feel more rational now than I did before I went in, and a lot more calm - deeply calm. It's not that "convincing myself everything is okay" sort of mindset, it's that actually knowing and feeling okay with, most importantly, myself - as well as my life, my friends, my family, Brian. I don't feel like there's a rush towards anything, or to know exactly where life is taking me...I'm just happy to be alive, and I mean that.
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