My Story.

This is the calm before the storm.

The day before Thanksgiving, a holiday that revolves around so much meat, and two days before the Christmas shopping frenzy, which revolves around retail spending and gift-giving stress. Getting out of work at a 2 o'clock dismissal, I thought I would take a little time to sit quietly and reflect. Giving my own private thanks, thinking about things that I am happy about; thinking about things that could use to change.

My own vegetarian story has a lot to do with Thanksgiving. For the years before I went veg, I just never felt right eating animals. But I grew up in a very meat-eating household of strict Italian decent, and one that was rife with tradition and conformity. So going vegetarian wasn't going to be an easy task. In the winter of 1995, I had reached 17, started listening to The Smith's, and began rebelling in ways that only a middle-class white kid (going to Catholic school) really can. I got the flu in early 1995, and I used this to my advantage. The last tangible thing I remembered eating was a hamburger. Staring down into the debris, I knew this was my way out. I was "scarred" by the experience, I told people, and no longer wanted to eat meat. This caused a huge uproar with my family, and since I wasn't doing the staple cooking at this point (and still lived at home), I bargained that I would still eat chicken. Transitioning into college in NYC, I lived on Ramen noodles, boxes of white rice, and frozen veggie burgers. I didn't care about my health then; all I cared about was not eating meat. Instead of gaining the "freshmen 10," I actually lost weight, going all the way down to 102 pounds. I went to Long Island on the weekends to visit my family, and my mother would not let me leave again unless I took her chicken cutlets -trays of them- back to the dorm with me. In hindsight, she was only concerned about my health and thought she was doing the right thing. This was before the internet, before you could google the millions of vegetarian recipes, blogs, and nutrition information that is so readily available to us now. She thought she was doing the right thing, and I can't blame her for it. I don't remember if I ever ate them all, truth be told, but I took the cutlets and went back on my way. I still ate chicken occasionally though, and even had a "vegetarian" roommate who convinced me that chickens “weren't really meat.” I don't know why I followed suit, but I was still listening to other people and hadn't quite developed my own backbone yet. Late bloomer, I guess.

Then, on Thanksgiving of 1997, I looked down at the turkey on my plate and thought "I can't do this; this just isn't right." It didn't feel right at all. No one was telling me it wasn't right either. My family wanted me to eat meat, my roommate thought chickens were "ugly animals that deserved to die," and I didn't have any vegetarian role models. It just felt, to me, inherently wrong.

On that Thanksgiving, I snuck by eating only sides and no one even noticed. Eventually, though, I outed myself as a real vegetarian and never looked back. Years later, I tried Tofurkey dinners that tasted like rubber tires and ate my share of frozen meat analogs. It took years and years to really develop into the mature vegetarian I am today. It took years to say that I don't want my veggies and beans cooked in animal stock, to not "pick off" the meat in a pasta dish or a party hero, and to learn a lot about nutrition and it's effects on the body. To finally look healthy, feel healthy, and be knowledgeable and proud of who I am.

I still have a way to go, as the new journey is now leaning more towards a vegan diet, weaning off the cheese that just aggravates my allergies anyway. Some people go cold turkey (pardon the pun), and some people take their time. The journey is different for each of us; we're all unique individuals with different backgrounds, so of course that is to be expected. I look forward to the ever ongoing journey of health, happiness, and peace of mind.

And for that, I am very, very, thankful.