Am I a cold plunger now?

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Last Friday, I voluntarily sat in a blow up tub full of ice cold water. No one dared me, paid me, or even mildly suggested it. I signed up. I handed over actual money. My husband is so amazing that he accompanied me, on the basis that “doing new things together is good for our marriage.” What a doll ❤️

Apparently, submerging your body in freezing water is trending, which is how I know it’s serious. It’s all over Instagram, sandwiched between “hot girl walks” and “beef tallow as anti-aging miracle.”

But don’t worry, I always fact check my Instagram pages, and even the scientists on the Zoe podcast agree that there’s solid evidence to support the benefits of cold-plunging, as well as the considerably more enticing sauna afterwards. Those Finnish folk really know what they’re doing.

So obviously, being the self-help sucker I am, I thought, great! Take my money!

Sadly for me, the sauna was not fired up on this rainy weekday morning, so we had to make do with trading places between a cold plunge and a gradually-getting-less-warm plunge.

As I sat there, skin screaming from the neck down, I really wished I hadn’t brought my husband. Having dragged him along with me, there was no way I could chicken out, leave early, or only go in up to my knees. And of course, being the competitive guy he is, it was all “who can stay in longer” “who can lie back and keep their nipples under” “put your hands in you cheater!”

And I thought, is this who I am?

Because not five minutes earlier, “who I am” was someone who keeps the heat pump on all day, who can’t watch tv without being under a blanket, and ….. But now, suddenly, I’m an Ice Bath Person?

This is what midlife does to you. It sneaks up on you while you’re packing school lunches and googling “how to hide veges in every dinner” and suddently BAM, you’re paying someone to torture you with cold water because the internet told you it could improve your mental health.

What I’m realising while I write this is that it’s not the cold plunging that’s part of my identity, it’s the “trying new things to improve myself.” Not because they always work. (Some do. Some just help keep my pockets empty.) But because I’m in that very specific season of life where I’m no longer 25 and winging it on youth and margaritas, and not yet 75 and full of wisdom and orthopedic sandals. I’m smack in the middle. The experimental zone.

I’m someone’s mother. I’m someone’s wife. I’m someone’s emergency contact. But I’m also still someone who wants to know who she is outside of those titles. And sometimes the path to self-knowledge goes through an ice bath.

So no, I don’t think I’m just a person who does cold plunges. I’m a person who hears about them, overthinks them, decides against them, signs up anyway, and then processes the entire experience via oversharing on the internet. That’s who I am.

And in a world of #wellness and “transform your life in 30 days” challenges, maybe that’s good enough.