Back to School

I'll admit, I'm no good at blogging. Sometimes I get on these tracks of thought when I think I could blog better than other people I see on the internet. I have so many deep, original ideas, damnit! But then I forget to blog that one awesome thought and I don't blog again for 6 months. So here I go again, thinking I have something important to say.


I go back to school in just a few days. Not grad school like I had originally planned on, but massage therapy school. I'm still in disbelief that I'm going through with this and how I made the decision.

It all began with a visit up to New Hampshire. I went to see my Grandmother, who had been at a nursing home since she broke her arm and didn't seem like she would recuperate for a long time. I didn't think that she could possibly be that bad, because the last time I had seen her, she still seemed with it. I was shocked, completely shocked, to see my Grandma in the state she was in. She was thin and fragile, and she couldn't even hold down a conversation. It hit me hard as I thought of the Grandma I grew up with, perfectly capable of taking care of herself.

I was upset as I drove home to Boston that night. I was on the phone with a couple people just to keep my mind off of my Grandma. I remember that I talked to Matt from his friend's phone since his phone had died. I was thinking about family and work and getting home to my warm bed.

Then there was a tarp in the road. Then I was swerving. Then I was completely 180 degrees turned around. I felt like I was in slow motion before I could figure out what to do and correct myself in the road. In that 10 seconds which felt like 10 minutes, I got hit, hard. I was on the highway, afterall. I had no idea what to do so I swerved over to the median on the left. I was shaking and like the two other car accidents I had been in before this one, my first instinct was to call my dad. As I did so the driver of the other car came up to my window. He wanted to settle this quickly and asked if I could pay him cash because according to him, it was MY fault. He told me we shouldn't call the cops, why bother, the damage wasn't that bad in his opinion. I was as wrecked as my car at this point. I started crying as I told my dad what was going on. He got very angry and told me to call the cops immediately. I did, and the cop soon showed up and when he asked for my information he asked if I was crying because I was hurt. I said, no, I'm just shaken up. He couldn't give a shit, he just wanted me to get on the shoulder and onto a tow truck.
When the tow truck took me to Boston I told him I didn't know how bad the damage was, maybe just a bent axle, which he said could be fixed easily. I called Matt's friend to get in touch with him. I found out later that his friend had contacted Matt who was at a work gathering so he almost didn't take the call. But then his friend said, Matt, Alicia's been in an accident, you need to talk to her now! That cracked me up and at least lightened the situation for me.

The car was much more damaged than I thought. I can't remember now, but the insurance found it a total loss. I still had a balance on my loan and whatever was remaining after I paid off the loan was only enough for a shitbox car or a nice car with another loan. I made the decision that many people thought I was crazy for making. I decided to go car-less and rely on public transportation. When comparing it to the upkeep of a car, I thought I was crazy for NOT doing it sooner. $400 a month compared to $60 for an unlimited monthly T pass.

Since that was settled, I had to figure out how to manage some of the things I relied on most for my car. The main one being my job; I used it to cart around clients and groceries. I figured I would make do until my company fired me for not having a car that they required or I decided to get a car again. Well my company couldn't fire me for that reason and I just did not want to get a car for a long, long time. (Maybe the whole time I live in Boston.) Yes, I did choose an excellent time, at the beginning of winter amidst snow and freezing temperatures, to make the switch. And Yes, it takes twice as long to get anywhere. But seriously, I couldn't handle driving anymore. I mean, three accidents in 5 years? Is anybody else that bad?

At first the job without driving was OK. People took pity on me and drove me around. That got old quickly. The job without the car became a nuisance and a headache and not just because I had some whiplash from the accident. It got bad enough that I spent hours (some at work) searching and applying for other jobs. I applied and applied and applied and it got me nowhere. Only one job called me and I went for the interview hopeful because it sounded like just what I wanted. Unfortunately, they were looking for someone with more supervisory experience and I didn't cut it. To make matters worse, I sunk into a depression because my Grandma (the one I visited in NH) passed away in early January. That is the point, at my most depressed, when my internet searches brought me to massage therapy. While at my lowest, this new prospective career switch gave me hope.

I had thought about massage as a career before, thinking it might be a dream job once I went to grad school, had kids, got older, or whatever other excuse I could think of. I know the exact moment I decided I would go to massage school. The day I was going to a workshop at Cortiva Institute, I had a staff meeting at work. We talked about the state of things at our company and in the mental health system. It was so depressing; I felt defeated by the end of that meeting. At the workshop that very same day, the president of the massage school talked to us and said, if you love helping people and you want to feel instant gratification, this is the one profession where you can do it. That's it. I knew it. I would go to massage school.

And here I am, going back to school.