A new physical experience....

I'm 40! I'm quite proud of 40! I've lived a rich life for 40! I've experienced my fair share of good and bad physical sensations in my 40 year old body... but I have to admit, today was a new one. Honestly, at this stage of the game, I didn't think there was much left physically to experience .... well, except for jumping out of an airplane, but hey, I'm thinking I can live peacefully without feeding my curiosity about that thrill.

• I've been around the block, so I've definitely experienced all the R-rated good stuff that isn't appropriate for this blog. :) 
•  I've gotten the giggles in the middle of a funeral, church and several other seriously inappropriate occasions, I've developed a UTI at a sports venue, fallen asleep in class, at the movies and almost behind the wheel.
• I've skied first tracks in knee deep powder on a crystal clear sunny day in the back bowls at Vail.
• I have walked on the pristine, unadulterated white sandy beach of a no-name village in Mexico.
• I've belly-flopped, water-skied and face planted in cold, mountain lakes
• I've felt the lung burning thrill of climbing a 14'er... even if the burn came at only 12k ft and I never made it to the actual summit....
• I've laid out in the California sun without sunscreen and suffered the consequential sunburn
• I've played in the Sand Dunes, the Desert, mud puddles and the hot rocks of Lake Powell
• I have given birth to 2 children and lost 2 others. I have the emotional and physical scars to show for it
• I have early stage arthritis in far more joints than I care to count
• I've had chest pains, migraines, ankle sprains, the wind knocked out of me, a baseball bat to the jaw, reconstructive knee surgeries, blisters, sties, ingrown hairs, boils, zits, blistering sunburns, road rash, razor burn, stress fractures, fingernails torn off and all sorts of other painful indignities. 

But, today, I experienced something like never before.....

As I was brushing my teeth, my mouth full of toothpaste, I started to snicker as I realized there was no holding back that familiar tickle in the back of my throat, at the base of my sinuses.... Immediately, I remembered the trick I'd learned from a friend after her nose job - when you have to sneeze and shouldn't--rub the roof of your mouth with your tongue until the urge goes away.

 I tried this trick.  The toothpaste just dripped out both corners of my mouth like Dracula after a midnight snack. The urge to sneeze was increasingly intense. There was no way to ditch the toothpaste before the sinus explosion. I just had to let it rip....

I sneezed!

With a toothbrush in my mouth full of toothpaste, I sneezed! I panicked  as the idea that I might choke to death passed like a bullet through my mind... what will the Medical Examiner say? Death by toothpaste? Will this end up on an episode of CSI?  How will my mother find me? Will she be more upset that I choked to death or that there is Crest sprayed all over the bathroom like blood spatter from a close-range wound?

Thankfully, I survived. Admittedly, it was one of the oddest sensations I've ever had.... like that first innocent drink of  unknowingly spiked punch...

 A good sneeze, when one does not hold back, is quite stress-relieving.... this was like that, but with a minty-fresh twist. :)

By the way, cleaning up fresh toothpaste is much easier than the dried on stuff....