Going with the flow

I was planning to use the new year as an excuse to get more aggressive about my desire to try new things. Then I was felled by the head cold of doom. I managed to struggle through New Year’s Day and even get out to socialize a few times, but I’ve basically spent the last two weeks sitting on the couch, swilling tea and coughing until my vision got swimmy. Good times.

In an act of desperation, I went to Walgreens and bought a nasal rinse. You know what I’m talking about. You put warm salty water into it, and then you squeeze the warm salty water into one nostril until it runs out the other. I was all over it in theory. Wash out my nose so I can breathe instead of coughing up a lung? Great! But in practice, all I could think was, “This is going to be like when I was learning to swim and I kept getting water up my nose and choking and I finally had to buy a little nose clip because otherwise I was afraid to put my face in the water.”

I told myself, “This counts as trying something new.” I also told myself, “There’s nothing to be afraid of; you are in complete control, and if you get too freaked out, all you have to do is stop.” Nonetheless, I stood there over the sink for a good 5 minutes before I got up the nerve to give it a try. Let me tell you: the sensation of water going through my sinuses and over my septum was a confusing combination of  “um, this really shouldn’t be happening” and “hey, that actually feels like it’s working” that left my primitive brain ping-ponging between “keep going” and “holy crap you’re going to drown stop now!!!!!”

Clearly, I didn’t drown, since I’m here typing this. And darned if it didn’t help. I’m pretty sure I got better faster than I would have with a face full of gunk. So now I just have to overcome the fear of turning into a big hippie singing the praises of stuff like sinus rinsing.

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