Is It Just Me? (14 page)

I haven't had the best luck with massages and the like. The first time I ever disrobed (for a stranger I hadn't met on an internet dating site), I was in Bali on a holiday my mum had shouted me. I was in my mid-twenties, we were staying at The Village of Enchantment and had heard all about this amazing place that did “THE BEST MASSAGES”. So off we went.

Upon arriving at the place we were presented with a menu of services. Having no idea what was what, I just went with the Full Body Massage. Excited to be finally getting into something everyone had been telling me about for years, I was led to a private room by a tiny woman in a mint-green uniform. Let's call her The Assailant. She suggested, in broken English, I get my gear off, and she'd be back in a minute.

I should've hailed a cab at that point. But didn't. And that's why I can write this column for you today. I got naked and immediately was struck by how deeply I did not want my immense body to be touched all over by a small and obligated Indonesian woman while I was in the nudie-rudie. Didn't want it. Not one bit. But did I say so? No. I went along with it, because, hey, I was already naked and there were frangipanis in the bath and didn't everyone just love full body massages?!

So I endured the massage and it hurt. A lot. I don't know about you, but I don't hold a lot of tension in my shin bones and last time I checked it really hurts when someone drags their knuckles across them. I think I blocked out the rest of it and loved it when she intimated that it was over and I should relax in the bath. I hopped in and as she left I just felt relief.

I was covered in burgeoning bruises and, frankly, had the previous forty-five minutes occurred anywhere else, it would have been deemed an assault. But at least I was alive (barely) and I'd learnt a valuable lesson – I'd never need another full body massage. In. My. Life.

My relief was short-lived. About seven minutes later, my tormentor returned and motioned for me to get out of the bath. The bath was sunken, so I got out of it with approximately the same amount of grace as a foal being born. I then sat opposite The Assailant, like a huge, hot, naked, embarrassed beanbag, and allowed her to rub moisturiser into my boozies. I cannot explain why I didn't just get up and leave.

I'll never know. I only offer to you, dear reader, that this “suffer in silence” mentality is hereditary and I got it from my mother.

My mother, while on holiday interstate, was talked into a massage at a bathhouse. She'd had a tricky hip and a friend, or maybe it was my sister, had recommended this wonderful man who could fix it in a jiff. She got her clothes off and waited for this hip magician to materialise. When he did, he looked less like a miracle masseur and more like a small Asian man who didn't speak English. Mum tried to explain that her hip was very painful. He didn't understand. Eventually she pointed to her groin region and started nodding furiously. She then made it worse by clasping her hands together in the universal symbol for pleading. He misunderstood. REALLY BADLY.

The groin, the nodding, the pleading.

It went a bad way very quickly and an English-speaking supervisor was called to diffuse the situation with the randy old lady in treatment room Number 5.

Mortified? Sure. But Mum didn't grab her stuff and leave. She went through with the massage, even though he was rough and she was almost dying from the pain.

Three days later I picked her up from the airport. I watched as hundreds of people snaked out of the plane, until only the flight attendants were dribbling out. Then there she was, last off, in a wheelchair. She hadn't mentioned it to me! And she hadn't mentioned it to the guy who had dislocated her hip, which he no doubt did while thinking, “That'll teach you for hitting on a masseur, lady.”

I'm three weeks away from baby number three and yesterday, as I dragged myself into the upright position at 4am to get ready for my radio job, I actually heard my body make a noise I'd never heard it make before. It was exactly like the sound I'd imagine the hull of the
Batavia
made moments before it was wrecked at sea. I am like a giant creaky boat. But I will not get a massage. No, sirree.

I also have a unique and wonderful condition called pubic symphysis diastasis. I call it “hammer hoo-hoo” because essentially it feels like someone has just gone through my pubic bone with a hammer. In fact, just last week I reviewed that title and have now escalated it to “axe hoo-hoo”. I can't walk further than twenty metres without searing pain. I would seriously like a Zimmer frame. But will I get a massage? No. I will not.

All of this physical misery will be alleviated when the baby is born – in twenty or so days. And I can live with the physical pain of axe hoo-hoo for the next twenty days, rather than the lifelong humiliation I can imagine will ensue if I make an appointment for someone to alleviate any pain centred around my private bathing-suit area.

 

No thanks. I don't want to end up in a wheelchair. I'm happy creaking.

 

3rd March 2013

I am turning forty in a few months and it doesn't faze me one little bit. I have several friends who are also hitting this milestone at around the same time, and they are split fifty-fifty between those who couldn't care less (like me) and those who shiver like a nervous Pomeranian left outside a supermarket at the mere mention of it. I'm thrilled with where I am at forty. In love, with three extraordinary children, a fabulous career and a home I plan on staying in for so long that I'm imagining where the ramps will go. Things are good. Sure, I'm also feeling old. But in a good way. Old like Dame Judi Dench (read: sage), not old like Jackie Stallone (read: ouch).

My thirties have been mayhem, and I am hoping my forties will be just as busy, but, to be honest, not as physically taxing. I have worked a lot and grown a lot of humans in the last five years, and I am looking forward to retiring my soft trapdoor maternity bras and sleeping without a night light. And yet I know that when those moments come, I will be so very sad about them.

I am also looking forward to having sex again. One day. You know what they say ... naughty forty! Allegedly. We'll see.

Anyway, a person can learn a lot in forty years. So, here I give you the things I know for sure after forty years on this planet:

Nothing says, “Welcome home, I love you,” more than being able to sniff a cooking free-range chook or beef bourguignon all the way from the driveway.

Making a commitment to eating a breakfast of quinoa, almond milk and pomegranate seeds every single day is not sustainable when egg-and-bacon toasties are still available in the world.

“Nesting” is a twee word for the biological compulsion to purchase useless things while you're pregnant. Also, is anyone keen on a pair of oriental-themed bedside tables, sixteen cushions made from vintage tea towels, or a yoghurt maker? Going cheap.

Avoid the hairdresser while pregnant or newly at home with a baby. You will leave the salon looking like a cockatoo or Brian Mannix in the “Everybody Wants to Work” film clip, circa 1984.

Stevie Nicks from Fleetwood Mac does a much better show when she's clean and sober. I say this after seeing her perform, many years ago, to a packed and somewhat shocked arena, while remaining mostly horizontal on what appeared to be a bed of incense, handkerchiefs and tambourines.

Heaping over-the-top praise on your children for no reason is absolutely fine. I regularly look into my four-year-old's eyes and tell him he is the most perfect, clever, funny and beautiful human being who ever walked the earth. He quakes with pleasure. I figure he won't care that I am working hard to give him a great education and organic bananas, but I hope he will remember my face looking at his and telling him he is amazing.

Either decide to leave your bikini line in its natural state or commit to seeing a professional waxer regularly. It's one or the other. Trust me, I've tried DIY and ended up with a pelt not dissimilar to that of an itchy Balinese street dog. Ignore this warning at your own peril. But if you do, my friend Clementine and I suggest that a Mason Pearson hairbrush will give you the best relief.

Working doesn't make you a bad mother. And staying at home doesn't either.

If someone is eyeballing you while you physically fill out your details on any kind of form, you will never, ever be able to remember the date. And, usually, you will forget what year it is too.

Being punched in the face will hurt a lot less than if your kid says, “You never play with me.”

Peter Allen's “Tenterfield Saddler” is the saddest song ever written.

Sometimes, kids just want to watch
The Super Hero Squad Show
with a glass of milk instead of exploring role-play via Play-Doh sausages. You are not a bogan for letting them.

Try to throw out fresh-cut flowers before the water in the vase starts smelling like the kind of place inhabited solely by boiled eggs, discarded big toenails and Gollum from
The Lord of the Rings
.

And lastly ... I don't think women can “have it all”. I just realised this right now. How do I know? I work in the morning and that means I can't drop my kids at kindergarten or, when the time comes, school, even though I would dearly love to. On the other hand, my friend, who stays at home with her kids, sometimes calls me in desperation just to remind herself of what a person taller than three and a half feet sounds like. There. In two simple, logical examples I have proven women can't have it all. If that's what “all” means. So stop asking the world's most stupid question already.

I could go on ... but I have a party to plan. I'm inviting everyone who's made me laugh during the last forty years. I'd better warn the neighbours.

 

12th August 2013

Knowing that this might be the only time I got to write one of these, I really wanted to put a lot of thought into it. Then
Geordie Shore
came on TV and I had to defrost a lasagne and the deadline was two hours ago so I'm just going to whack all these wonderful, inspirational, patient and helpful people in the list below.

You know what you've done.

And you know I think you are awesome.

Kate Cox, Pat Ingram, Danielle Teutsch, Caitin Yates, Jeanne Ryckmans, David Wilson, Andrew Gaul, Robyn Cornell, David Vodicka, Yasmin Naghavi, Kirsty Webb and Jenn Dutton.

A special thanks to my amazing parents, Pat and Garry Swan, and my spectacular sisters, Catherine and Elizabeth Swan. The gift of your company, humour and insight has been the highlight of my first 40 years.

And to my diamond. Chris Saville. Aka The Chippie. Thank you for bringing my carefree twenties to an end in the most wonderful way possible. And for making me feel good about every little thing. She loves you.

 

Photo: Mark Lobo

 

Chrissie Swan is a TV host and co-host of MIX 101.1's breakfast show in Melbourne and
The 3pm Pick-Up
nationally. Follow Chrissie on Twitter @ChrissieSwan.

 

Chrissie Swan is personally managed by David Wilson at Watercooler Talent & Media: www.watercooler.net.au; @watercoolertwit.