Today is World Vegan Day. So, if you will indulge me, I shall now post a blog about veganism. Ahem. It is a long post. Pull up a chair. Make some tea. Here we go. (This is not about the slaughtering of innocent animals or how we pollute the atmosphere by mass producing cows, this is just my testimonial and update of how I got to where I am. Deal with it.)

I became a vegan on December 21, 2006. I’m hesitant to even refer to myself as a vegan sometimes since I own multiple pairs of leather shoes and indulge in desserts that sometimes contain honey or the occasional egg. Strict vegans would not call me vegan at all and would probably be offended that I still wear clothes made of wool and silk. (Silk? Really? Do I own anything silk?) Whatever, let’s put all that aside for the sake of this post and just say that 98% of the time, I eat what is considered a vegan diet, a diet free from animal products including meat, dairy and eggs and that I am celebrating World Vegan Day along with every staff member at LUSH, who’s been asked by the company to eat vegan for the day. (ONE MORE REASON TO LOVE THAT STORE.)

I became a vegetarian in the summer of 2006 for about 5 months for absolutely no reason at all. I did absolutely no research on the subject. I did not think about it. I just woke up and thought “HMMM. NO MEAT ANYMORE!” and that was that. And though I was no longer consuming meat or fish, I was consuming a TON of dairy and a ton of crap in general. I was not necessarily healthier, just happy for an excuse to eat 10,000 pounds of cheese a day. When I left to go on tour, I went back to chicken and turkey in order to survive the phenomenon known as Eating Restaurant Food Every Single Day For Three Months.

During the last ten days of our tour, a castmate of mine left early for another gig and was replaced by the now infamous Vegan Mike who has appeared several times on this blog for many reasons including (but not limited to): his general awesomeness, he does great accents, he is on my list of Top Five Most Hilarious People I Have Ever Met Ever For Real Seriously and because mainly, he kind of changed my entire life. Vegan Mike is obviously a Vegan and was the first one of his kind that I’d ever met though I do have many friends that are vegetarian.

“A VEGAN?!” I remember remarking to my friend Margot. “WHAT DOES HE EAT!?” Margot suggested something witty like “paper” and that was that.

I was driving the tour bus AKA Dodge Sprinter o’ Fun when we picked up Vegan Mike at the Detroit airport. I was very distracted at the time, driving the van, making fun of someone and then proceeding to lose my wallet in a Wendy’s bathroom stall but finally at some point, I wound up sitting in the back of the van with Michael and discussing various topics, including his penchant for trail mix.

It’s funny, isn’t it? To look back on your life and think about those serendipitous times when you meet people that change you? And how in that tiny, casual moment, you have absolutely no idea what’s ahead? How that person will tease out of you your very best qualities? How that person will come barreling into your life and you will open up to them and share with them and you will slowly start to metamorphose into something you never knew you could be? And you wonder how you ever survived before knowing them?

All those moments are different whether they are with friends or lovers or aliens. (?! I didn’t know what else to write besides friends or lovers. What else is there?) But the moments are the same in that I always think the same thought and that is “This person gets me.” I do not remember having such a moment with my cousin Tom, since we grew up together. But I do remember all the others. With my best friend Alayna, it happened while she watched me clean out my kitchen cabinets. I assigned her the task of figuring out which Tupperware containers were missing their lids. And by God, did I know in that instant that we were meant to be.

Meeting Vegan Mike was very much like that and so we talked all the time every single second of every day and much of our conversation was centered around veganism, not because he was preachy but because I bothered him about it all the time. I remember telling him that I was interested in going back to vegetarianism but that I could not for the life of me think of giving up dairy. “CHEESE! YOGURT!? IT IS MY LIFE!” Back in the city, after the insanity of an 8-day Master Cleanse, I decided to give veganism a try, just for thirty days. Michael’s philosophy being that, really, you could do anything for just thirty days if you had to. (My addendum being “Except maybe be a prostitute. But that’s just me personally.)

I highly agree with the theory that being a vegan is easier to do when you have someone to show you the ropes. Reading about it helped cement everything in place for me and though cookbooks helped me find my way somewhat, it was really Vegan Mike who helped me relearn how to eat and showed me the effect that my choices had on animals and the environment. I realized that over time, my definition of “healthy” had shifted. Before, a healthy day started out with an omelet, continued with a turkey sandwich on wheat and ended with a piece of chicken, vegetables and some rice.

Healthy to me now is a ton of fruit, a ton of vegetables, salads and soups, quinoa and barley, tofu, cashews, chickpeas, nut butters, kidney beans, black beans, almond milk, whole wheat pumpkin muffins, Luna Bars, vegan pancakes with strawberries on Sundays and I could keep going forever and ever. After just thirty you-can-do-anything-in-this-amount-of-time days, I felt amazing. I felt less sluggish, less heavy, more energetic, more positive. Some of it was Vegan Mike boosting my self-esteem all the damn time and some of it was the change in eating. Most of the time it was both.

My aunt once told me that being a vegan is a major inconvenience and also extremely rude, particularly when in a group setting. At first, I really did feel like a bothersome inconvenience to people, especially when out to eat. But I don’t anymore. (In fact, after I spent some time mulling it over, I concluded that it is very similar to having a food allergy. Sure maybe it inconveniences a host or hostess but it’s no one’s fault.) Most of the time, as long as no one brings it up, I’m able to order off any menu without strangers ever taking note of my eating choices. And sometimes, when people do take note of it, I feel incredibly cared for. A few weekends ago when I was at home, my mother remarked that there was nothing for dinner and my father told her he was sure that the fridge was full of leftovers. “No, no,” she clarified, “Laura can’t eat any of that.” And a few hours later, we all sat down to homemade vegetable soup and a pasta dish with olive oil and broccoli.

It’s taken awhile but my family no longer thinks of me as “going through a phase” and has accepted and even copied my eating habits (this mostly being my father, thanks to his cancer. Hooray for cancer.) Of course, everyone has their opinion and a startlingly rude way of revealing it. A famous story now in my family is one that involves my aunt turning to me over Chinese food and asking me if I ate fish. When I replied that I did not, she countered with, “Laura!! Jesus Christ ate fish! Are you saying that God is wrong?!” Vegan Mike was with me when this fabulous story occurred and I believe that when she uttered this, I kicked him under the table very hard. Or he kicked me. I had been a vegan about a week, him about seven years and neither of us had ever heard such a case for carnivores. You had to hand it to her, it was pretty creative.

With the exception of a few, none of my friends were ever excited for my venture into veganism. Mostly it was, “Are you seriously going to do that?” and even better “That is so DUMB and UNNATURAL.” Which, okay, because eating hormone-filled rotted cow carcass is such an incredibly natural experience but I digress. Some of my friends express their admiration when I “cave in” and eat something non-vegan. While taking a bite of a non-vegan dessert, one friend remarked that if I had to be a vegan, at least I was a “cool” vegan, implying that most of the time, vegans are tightassed losers. (Okay fine! I am sometimes a tightassed loser!)

Vegan Mike once warned me that the more research I did on the subject, the harder it would be to ever go back to my old lifestyle. He couldn’t have been more correct. And I do feel that living in ignorance is somewhat easier. If I never read about the animals or about the physical effects of meat and dairy on my body, it might be easier to go out to a restaurant and order anything I wanted off the menu. It might be simpler to attend parties or family gatherings or anything at all really if I didn’t think twice about what I put on my plate. But it’s kind of too late for that now and I’m secretly kind of glad.

I had some very interesting experiences while converting to the vegan lifestyle. Avid readers may remember a lovely episode that occurred when I decided to indulge in cheese after a few months without it. Who knew that underneath it all, I was really lactose intolerant? A condition that was probably well underway before becoming vegan in the first place!? I remember calling Mike and bragging to him about my food choices for the day.

“GREAT! So I started off GREAT! I made a smoothie!”

“THAT SOUNDS DELICIOUS AND AMAZING!” said Vegan Mike, which is his response for pretty much everything in life.

“I made it with raspberries! And strawberries! And orange juice! And this stuff my roommate has called ‘whey protein powder’!”

“Um. Laura? Whey is a milk protein.”

“@$^@#$%!%$!!!!!! I WAS SO GOOD UNTIL THAT MOMENT!”

And so it went.

And now I know about whey. And about casein. And about a whole bunch of things I never thought I would ever know. My father told me once that he could “NEVER” seeing himself eating tofu, NEVER NO. I told him I had a similar reaction. Now I meet him for Thai food after his doctor appointments and the fried tofu appetizer is the first thing we order. There is never any left on our plate.

My roommate became a vegan a few months after I did. Gradually, we made the transition together. Once soymilk entered the house, we stopped buying regular milk. We replaced meat with tofu and veggie burgers and fake hot dogs and beans and peanut butter. We replaced cheese, ravioli, breads and English Muffins with non-dairy versions. Right now 2/3 of our household eats a vegan diet. We use separate pots and pans for cooking the non-meat items.

I am so grateful to the compassionate, passionate boy who guided me and subsequently my roommate and my father toward a healthier state of being. It is because of him that I stop people while walking their dogs and bend down to pet them, remembering that animals are all the same and deserve to be treated with kindness and respect. It is because of him that I buy local-grown in-season food and that I frequent the farmer’s market and remember to take my B vitamins. It is because of him that I know how to bake cookies without using eggs, how to make a kickass stir-fry with pineapple chunks and how to make the most amazing chocolate peanut butter pie you’ve ever tasted in your life.

It is a universal truth that in the same way that people can barrel full force into your life, they can also slip away very quietly without a sound, without a warning. As with all friends, lovers, and aliens, sometimes there are rifts that cannot be repaired. So we are left with the lessons they taught us and the way they showed us that we matter and that the choices we make affect everything and everyone, a ripple in the water that can move on and create a wave. If you feel so inclined, I would love you very much if you ate a vegan meal today or ate vegan meals all day, or all week or heck, even thirty days. After all, someone once told me you can do pretty much anything in thirty days. Happy World Vegan Day.