As I’ve grown older, I have strangely, but I guess expectedly, started to love getting massages and going to jjim jil bang (korean bathhouses) – activities I loathed even a few years ago. Maybe its the inner ajummah coming out, but the first thing I wanted to do after taking my last final was get a massage.

This past week, I went to the jjim jil bang with my mom and my grandma.  I was pretty excited to go, but to my dismay, my mom signed me up for the bath scrub, something that even I (as a newfound massage enthusiast) was a bit wary of.  Basically, its an hr-long ordeal where an older 60ish y.o. lady lays you out butt-naked on a table and scrubs every unpioneered inch of your body.  Most women have had their private bits poked/prodded in weird ways whether its to get that bikini wax or visiting the gyno, but this takes it to a whole other level of vulnerability.

When I first entered the backside of the spa (where these scrubs were taking place), I felt like I was entering a Hostile-esque horror movie where all the women were separated into rooms and were tortured (again, my wild imagination getting the best of me).  There was something eerie about it as I passed by exposed rooms of naked women on their respective cots and heard hot water angrily splashing about.

As I settled down, my masseuse knew I was pretty nervous and she told me to just relax.  And then the scrubbing commenced.  It kind of hurt at first, but then as I did start to relax, it felt oddly refreshing.  All the grit and grime just being unapologetically scoured off of me, with no mercy.   When I was done with the session, my skin felt flushed, but renewed.   It felt like an entire layer was peeled off of me, and here I was – raw and bare.

A perfect way to top off the year, no?  All the burdens, concerns, heartache, disappointments, and sorrow just scrub-a-dub-dubbed away.  Off with the old, on with the new.