Do You Remember Your First Time?
My first spa experience — and the beginning of a lifelong love affair with transformation
Preparing the Love to Spa website got me thinking about my first time.
And no — not that first time.
My first spa experience.
It didn’t happen until I was 21.
A Gift That Felt Like Permission
I had just graduated from college, and one of my best friends since childhood, Kate, gave me a gift certificate to a local hotel spa. At the time, it felt impossibly luxurious — the kind of thing you admired from afar but didn’t yet feel fluent in.
Kate always said I was hard to shop for, but somehow she never missed. She had an instinct for what would land, what would delight me in a way that felt personal rather than performative.
I still remember how excited I was — not just for the treatment itself, but for the permission it seemed to grant. To slow down. To receive. To experience something I had quietly wanted for a long time.
A facial that changed everything
I chose a facial.
Even as a kid, I had been fascinated by skincare. I used to give myself little at-home “facials,” experimenting with products, rituals, and routines long before I had the language for why they mattered to me. So when it came time to choose a treatment, the decision felt obvious.
Anyone who’s ever had a professional facial knows the feeling afterward — that moment when you catch your reflection and think, Why can’t my skin be like this all the time?
It’s a rhetorical question, of course. But that moment did something to me.
I was hooked.
From there, it grew naturally: more facials, then massages, then entirely new treatments I’d never heard of before. Whenever I traveled, I started building in time for the spa — seeking out new experiences, new modalities, new ways of caring for myself.
A love affair with spas was born.
I was always drawn to transformation
The truth is, my interest in all of this started long before that first gift certificate.
As a child, I used to check out the same book from the library again and again — part of a children’s career series, this one about cosmetology. It followed a young girl preparing for a birthday party, nervous and unsure, until a new outfit and a new hairstyle helped her feel like herself again. Not a different person — just more confident in who she already was.
I loved makeovers. Still do.
Not because of vanity. Not because of appearances for their own sake. But because of what happens internally when the outside begins to align with how you want to feel inside.
That’s what spas have always represented to me:
Transformation. Confidence. Becoming.
Spas aren’t about becoming someone else. They’re about remembering who you are — and letting your life reflect it.
Spas are not about pampering
Somewhere along the way, “spa” became shorthand for indulgence or superficiality. But anyone who has truly experienced a spa — especially a destination spa — knows that’s an incomplete story.
Spas are immersive environments.
Yes, there are treatments. But there are also art classes, cooking classes, movement practices, time in nature, moments of stillness, and increasingly, experiences that touch something deeper — emotional, energetic, even spiritual.
They are places where we experiment with new versions of ourselves. Where we step out of routine. Where we remember what it feels like to be cared for — and sometimes, who we are beneath the noise of everyday life.
In that sense, spas are not escapes from real life.
They are rehearsals for living better ones.
Kate, Princess Camp and a quiet knowing
Years later, Kate and I were talking about a summer camp for her five-year-old daughter, my goddaughter. She was considering something called “Princess Camp,” but I could hear hesitation in her voice.
When I asked why, she laughed and said, “Well… I’m afraid she might end up like you.”
Then she explained the schedule:
Monday was Mermaid Day.
Tuesday was spa day — manicures and pedicures.
Wednesday was hair and mini facials.
Thursday was Royal Tea.
I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Well, I don’t know about mermaids,” I told her, “but the other three sound exactly like my kind of camp.”
And then I said something that still feels true:
“She’s either going to be a spa girl or she isn’t. And if she is, she’ll discover it sooner or later — whether she’s five or twenty-one.”
Kate didn’t just give me my first spa experience. She encouraged me, years later, to write about them. To share what I noticed. To trust that this love — this curiosity — wasn’t frivolous, but meaningful.
In many ways, Love to Spa began there, long before it had a name.
This post, and this site, are dedicated to her loving memory.
Where this story leads
Love to Spa isn’t about luxury for luxury’s sake.
It’s about honoring the quiet inner knowing that draws us toward experiences that help us feel more like ourselves — more grounded, more alive, more at home in our own skin.
For me, that knowing showed up early. It just took time — and one very thoughtful gift — for it to reveal its path.
A gentle pause
Take a moment and ask yourself: Do you remember your first time?
The experience — spa or otherwise — that made you realize there might be another way to feel in your body, your life, or your sense of self?
Sometimes those moments are breadcrumbs. We don’t recognize them until much later.
If you’d like to go deeper
If this story resonated, you may enjoy exploring how spas — and intentional experiences — can support a fuller, more aligned way of living.
Option A) Read how spas have taught me to live well.
Option B) Discover your spa archetype
