I love Not That Kind of Girl, macaroons & highly recommend checking out her adventures in doing things outside of her comfort zone. I can’t think of any better way to write about my experience with the Polar Bear Plunge than to borrow her format.
Not That Kind of Girl: The kind of party hard socialite who takes her clothes off & runs headfirst into near frozen salt water.
I am: an indoor cat.
I am not: going into any ocean at any temperature unless a) I can see the bottom through crystal clear waters or b) my feet are protected from the Sharp Pointy Unknown by a pair of crab crushers.
I am also not: prepared to trade my footy pajamas for a bikini in February.
The Scene: Sea Isle City, a (mostly) quiet New Jersey resort town who shot down MTV as a location for Jersey Shore season 2. I am hanging out with Hulk Hogan & a group of people inexplicably dressed like Devo. They are 9 year veterans of the Plunge; I have not been in the ocean since 2004. Taking in the unshoveled sidewalks’ 2 feet of snow, I have pretty much convinced myself that there is no way I’m going to do this. We are taking the strongest jello shots known to polar bears which I have paired with a classy Cabernet- a 4-pack of little bottles of 2010 Sutter Home.
At precisely 1:50 pm we begin the frigid trek to the beach. The air temperature is holding at 27 in Sea Isle, however the wind is doing its damnedest to lower that number. The ocean water is a bathtub in comparison at 36. I’m slipping on snow on the beach in a herd of 4,000 drunken polar bears, filling my warm cozy Ugg slippers with sand & snow. My feet are burning already & I’m ready to back out, go home & scald my internal organs with hot chocolate.
There isn’t much time to think. The Devo hats are on the ground & the Hulk peels off his mustache as I stand there gawking at the masses of Philly frat boys fist pumping & screaming “YEAH!” even though no one asked them anything.
Before I can process the scene, my weird group is undressed & ready to go. I drop my oversized (& very warm) sweatpants to the sand & pull my Penn State t-shirt off until I’m standing on the beach. In February. In a bikini.
We start walking toward the angrily churning white water. People are both cheering & staring in ways that make me horrendously uncomfortable. We finally make it through the wall of people & suddenly there’s nothing between me & the big, fierce sea. My mind blanks & my body lurches forward on its own volition, throwing me into a mad run only Phoebe would understand.
My feet hit the water & I keep running, leaping over waves like some kind of newly discovered sea creature. The temperature doesn’t even register. Nothing matters except running into the water forever, maybe until I reach England. This is as far away as I can get from this place right now & I’ll take it. Waist deep, I realize I can’t jump anymore. I see the wave barreling toward me. The only option is to dive.
I suck in a breath that stabs my lungs like inhaling icicles, raise my arms over my head & throw myself forward. It doesn’t hurt right away. It doesn’t hurt until my head & torso break through the surface & then my whole body is burning as if I’ve resurfaced in the fire lakes of Hell. It’s actually amazing how freezing & burning feel just the same. I’m unsuccessfully trying to pull air into my lungs, but my body is so shocked I can only get short gasps as I make my way back to the beach where my glorious glorious towel awaits me.
I can't feel feelings!
The Verdict: Because 2009 was the year I lost everything I loved, 2010 has become the year of Why Not? I needed a shock to my Radical Self Love project & my 30 before 30. What I got was a shock to my nervous system. Sure, the adrenaline rush was fun, but I came out of the whole thing in the same place I started, literally. Only much colder & wet.
[...] for more NTKOG brilliance, do read this hilarious post by Alzy! Lady took a polar bear plunge with some Hulk Hogan impersonators. Good frig! Hero of the [...]