Yesterday, when Adam were on our way home from grocery shopping together (and yes, I do consider grocery shopping together to be a new-couple activity, I would have never guessed that after four years, this guy would still be happy to follow me around a grocery store), he mentioned that he�s coming up on his ten year vegiverssary (ten years since he went vegetarian).

So strange how he recalls these milestones, but has no clue what he did yesterday, but I�m the other way around. I can recite entire conversations from the day before, but god help me if I ever have to remember a milestone without the aid of FB or a calendar.

That�s when I recalled that it�s been sixteen years since I became a vegetarian, and I�ve never celebrated a single vegiverssary (I didn�t even know that was a thing people celebrated). I started telling him how after the first five years or so, I was proud to tell people how long I�d been a vegetarian because it seemed like it commanded more respect to say, �five years,� rather than, �two months.�

Later in life, when it got to be around 11 or 12 years, I started feeling more embarrassed about it because I felt like it dated me.

This is how I imagine it:

�I�ve been a vegetarian for 16 years.�

External response, �Good for you!�

Internal response, �Wow, she must be old.�

Anyway, I�m still eating mostly vegan, but not being super strict, especially when we order food at work. Being a vegan is shockingly easy, as long as one never tries to order food from others, then suddenly, it�s an extreme challenge.

I can see why the common perception is that being vegan is difficult, if all your exposure is limited to watching a vegan trying to order at a restaurant, then of course, it looks really, really hard.

I�m pleasantly surprised that my health has improved. I haven�t gone to get it assessed, and that wouldn�t make any difference. My blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar numbers have always been within the ideal range, anyway. I feel better. Specifically, I have more energy, and I don�t get nearly as cranky and frazzled when I�m hungry, anymore. It�s weird, I feel hungry, but it doesn�t bother me as much.

The other thing? Even though my exercise and workout routine has taken a nose-dive because work has been consuming my every waking moment, I haven�t gained any weight. As a matter of fact, I may have even lost a pound or two.

The few times that I�ve managed to get away and take a zumba class, even after weeks away, I don�t feel like I�m about to collapse like a chain smoker doing a marathon. High-intensity cardio has always been something I've had to train for. My cardio health has generally been pretty good throughout my life, but the hell I had to go through to maintain that? Who knew I could just be a vegan?

Maybe I�m stating the obvious here, but I didn�t change my diet by just cutting eggs and cheese out of it. I�ve increased the amount of whole grains, beans, legumes and nuts in my diet, too. I�ve always been a big fan of fruits and vegetables, so I think that�s stayed about the same. The only saturated fat I�ve been getting has been the rare times that I�ve eaten cheese and occasionally from avocados.

I�m trying to avoid refined grains, but that�s not the easiest task in the world, either.

Honestly, I really would have not mentioned food or my eating again, if I didn�t feel so much better, physically. I think it�s notable. I had the same experience when I became a vegetarian, and that was my main motivation for maintaining it (no offense to cute, fuzzy animals or the ugly ones, either).

On A completely unrelated note, yesterday, I had an intensive meditative experience. We went to a meditation/energy retreat. We did a pranayama exercise that totally pulled me through the wormhole.

The exercise went for about 45 minutes. I am not going to do a play-by-play account, but there are a couple of things that I�ll mention.

My entire body felt like it was vibrating so fast that I was sure it was dissolving into the energy around me. It was especially strong in my hands and finger tips, but it was quite intense from my elbows down.

Towards the end, I had the realization that everything we experience is delusion (a commonly held Buddhist belief). This caused me to have a flood of emotion because I couldn�t believe all the time I�ve wasted supporting the delusion and often torturing myself because of it.

I�ve had small glimpses of this realization before, but it�s never lasted so long and I�ve never felt it so intensely. I am one who is prone to having intense meditative experiences, and I�ve had a shamanic experience or two, as well.

Some people�s brains are just wired that way. I have no doubt that, had I been Christian, or some religion that believes in a deity, that I�d have felt like I was melding with God or whatever it is they believe.

Not that I�m trying to diminish the experience. I think that intense spiritual experiences are an important part of life. Sometimes that's all there is to keep a person going, when she starts hitting the, "What's the point of all of this?" wall.

I just don�t really know what to make of it, right now. Will I ever?

Regardless, it has helped me. Today, I feel a little more cleaned out, like a sponge that was wrung out hard, re-soaked and wrung our hard, again.

The guy leading the retreat is a Zen monk, in my lineage. I think we may even be dharma siblings, I�m not sure. He also does a lot of energy work and healing, so I�m quite interested in his work and his teachings. I�m planning to skulk around his website and maybe read his book, to see what comes up.

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