When I decided to become vegan in 2011, I cried during my first grocery run. I stood in the aisles not knowing what to buy... thinking about the daunting change from my college-style diet of convenience food to label-checking and cooking actual meals from ingredients, instead of cereal and Easy Mac. The decision to become vegan was one that I had taken months to prepare for. I committed to being vegetarian first, and felt a major difference within two weeks. I continued to research, talk, read, and think about every aspect of vegan eating that I could imagine. After a few months, the final straw came down to some friends in my Spanish class asking me why I didn't just try it. I took their challenge and set a date for myself: the first day of the next month, for at least 30 days. I was prepared, it was something I wanted to do, I knew the challenges and the difficulties associated with switching to a vegan diet, and I also had an idea of the health benefits I could expect. And yet there I stood in the grocery store on my first day as a hopeful vegan with tears welling up in my eyes.
I often think back to that scene and consider my poor vegan-transitioning-self who had no clue what she was really doing. It took hours to scan the grocery store aisles, figuring out what pre-made foods contained dairy (hint: most of them!) and what things were okay. It became easier with time, and I only cried that first time. It's now second-nature to me: checking labels for high protein and fiber content, buying copious amounts of produce, and skipping the aisles that I know have no chance of containing vegan-friendly options.
Recently, I found myself in the grocery store in a situation similar to that first daunting trip. Tears welling up in my eyes, I scanned the aisles for kid-friendly meals for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks, having never bought those things before. I spent $114.98. After an unexpected phone call and an impromptu 5-minute discussion with my husband Cody earlier that day, we had one hour to prepare our house for 3 children who would become completely dependent on us from that time forward. They arrived around 6:00pm, and everyone was in bed by 8:00pm with minimal crying and not a lot of sleeping. For hours, my husband and I sorted through suitcases and garbage bags full of clothes, shoes, bedding, toys, a dozen winter coats, and assorted baby items. There were more items than children usually brought, our caseworker said. But we were told to wash everything. Cody did at least five loads of laundry that night, and a few more after that. I went to the grocery store around 11:00pm, with the crying incident.
I cried because I was overwhelmed. I knew what I had signed up for, knew I was doing the right thing, but I had still gone from a mother of one infant to a mother of four children in one day. I didn't know their last name, let alone what foods they liked or even would tolerate. Everything was a guess, and it was midnight before I even left the store. We didn't sleep much that first night. We got the clothes and the food sorted, but our daughter was thrown out of her routine and instead of sleeping 6-8 hours like she normally did, she awoke every hour. The other baby did the same, but on a rotation with my daughter, like clockwork. Cody and I were both up every 30-60 minutes for the entire 5 hours of sleep we got that night.
No comments:
Post a Comment