Counting on Things That Are Possible

Back in June, I attended a friend's wedding in the Berkshires in Massachusetts. On the morning-of, I was assisting the groom with his outdoor ceremony decor (pulling wooden bench after wooden bench out of storage and staging them in front of the makeshift altar), and he happened to mention that I was vegan. This caught the attention of one of his groomsmen, who immediately turned and asked, "WHO's vegan?" The groom pointed to me unabashedly, at which point the groomsmen took one good, hard look at me and said,

"You don't look vegan."

What does this mean? It means my clothes weren't homespun from hemp. It means I don't have dreadlocks or a ponytail. It means that I bathe and use deodorant, that I don't have a peace symbol etched into the underside of my arm, or a soiled bandana around my neck, or cruelty-free moccasins on my feet.

It means I don't look the part ... or whatever "the part" is supposed to look like. It means there's a serious misconception about vegans out there.

 In a completely unrelated event, a work acquaintance discovered that I was vegan over an office lunch. After cracking several jokes on the topic (some harmless, some offensive), he said,

"Look, my wife was vegetarian for a while. I converted her into a meat eater. You can't really say you're a vegan until you've had a really good steak."

 "Actually," I said, "I've only been vegan for [at the time] ten months. Before that, I ate meat all the time. So this is a conscious choice."

 "Oh."

Have most of my food-driven conversations with non-vegans been noteworthy? Not at all. For the most part, my interactions with non-vegans have been surprisingly positive. People are generally curious and compassionate. Most people who approach me on the issue are doing so because they're interested in learning more about it and hearing about the experience, the transitions, the ups and downs, and the decision I made to become vegan. The few negative responses that I've had are coming not from a place of hatred but a place of ignorance -- and discomfort as a result of that ignorance.

 All that being said, this is not a blog about veganism. There are enough of those. Rather, this is a blog about making a change. On Thanksgiving Day (yes, Thanksgiving Day, a day traditionally reserved for turkey and gravy and whole sticks of butter) of 2010, I changed the way I consume/talk about/think about food. And at the start of this year, while my wife and I drove around North Carolina after visiting our respective families for the holidays, we decided to make health our top priority this year. That doesn't mean that we promised ourselves that we would shed 15 pounds by February or work out "X number of hours per week" (because those goals are unrealistic and typically don't work). Instead, it meant that boot camp sessions would take priority over sleeping in; that a costly gym membership would take priority over other large-scale purchases; that stopping to get fast food rather than taking the time to cook a proper meal, even when we're completely wiped, would not be an option. And, close to 300 days in, I can tell you that it's been one hell of a year.

It's so easy to say that a change isn't possible for you, that your life and all of its demands and hardships and hurdles won't allow you to cook/exercise/live a healthy lifestyle. I get it. But change comes from commitment, not excuses. Take it from a married guy who works four jobs consecutively, is currently working on two books, and always cooks for two. We all have our baggage, and we can all find an excuse. The people who achieve and change are the ones who say, "I'm going to make that happen regardless. It's possible."

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