August has always felt like a threshold, a proverbial Gateway.
This month marks nearly ten years since I became vegan.
Well…almost.
I made it exactly 9 years, 11 months, and 29 days longer than I ever thought I would.
When I first made that decision, I honestly wasn’t sure I’d last a week.
It became nearly a decade.
It shaped me in ways I never expected. It taught me compassion, intentionality, and that our everyday choices matter. It challenged me to live closer to my values and to consider the impact of even the smallest decisions.
That part hasn’t changed.
What has changed is me.
Age has a funny way of humbling us. Midlife has a way of reminding us that what worked for the body at thirty doesn’t always work at fifty-four.
Compassion
Age has a funny way of humbling us. Midlife has a way of reminding us that what worked for the body at thirty doesn’t always work at fifty-four.
Over the past year, my body began telling me it needed something different. Despite working out consistently, I wasn’t able to build or maintain muscle the way I once could. I began experiencing episodes of vertigo and other health concerns that led my physician and me to take a closer look at my nutrition.
After working closely with my nutritionist—and after more than one heartfelt conversation with a few good friends as I wrestled with the moral conflict of it all—I made the decision to add sustainably sourced seafood back into my diet.
If you know me, you know this wasn’t a casual decision.
It wasn’t a cheat day.
It wasn’t convenience.
It certainly wasn’t because I stopped caring.
If anything, I cared enough to sit with the discomfort, ask difficult questions, and make a decision that honored both my values and the reality of the body I live in.
Fish.
Shrimp.
That’s it.
No dairy.
No eggs.
No beef, pork, or poultry.
Tofu and tempeh aren’t going anywhere. Most days I’ll still eat exactly as I always have. My diet remains overwhelmingly plant-based.
For years, “vegan” wasn’t simply how I ate—it became part of who I was. And for much of that journey, I wouldn’t change a thing. It taught me compassion, intentionality, and that our everyday choices ripple far beyond ourselves.
But somewhere along the way, I realized I was becoming more committed to the identity than to the question that had created it in the first place.
The question was never, How do I become vegan?
The question was, How do I live with the least amount of harm while honoring both the world around me and the body I have been entrusted with?
Those aren’t always the same answer.
Living in a world that isn’t built around your values can sometimes make you feel isolated. For years, I experienced that whenever I traveled or shared meals with others. During our recent eleven-day trip through the Southwest, every menu seemed to offer fish or shrimp. Tofu? I found it once.
I realized I was spending more energy defending an identity than listening to my body.
My choices matter.
They matter because they shape the kind of world I want to help create.
I will still buy cruelty-free, PETA-approved products whenever possible.
I still won’t buy leather.
I still oppose factory farming, needless suffering, destructive fishing practices, the destruction of rainforests, and the kind of corporate greed that values profit over life.
Those convictions didn’t disappear because my doctor told me I needed more protein.
If anything, they’ve become more intentional.
But my choices also have to sustain the life I’m actually living.
Compassion that extends to every living thing except yourself isn’t compassion.
It’s self-neglect wearing virtuous clothing.
So I’m choosing something that feels surprisingly liberating.
Not abandoning my values.
Returning to them.
Lessons from the Canyon
One evening, standing at the rim of the Grand Canyon beneath a full moon, I couldn’t help but think about echoes.
If you speak into the canyon, your voice eventually returns to you.
Not because the canyon is speaking.
Because it is reflecting.
Life has begun to feel that way.
The love we offer.
The compassion we extend.
The judgments we make.
The forgiveness we withhold.
The prayers we whisper into the silence.
Somehow, they all find their way back.
Perhaps that’s one of the canyon’s greatest lessons.
We are always living inside an echo of the life we’re creating.
May my words become kinder.
May my choices become wiser.
May my heart remain open, but never at the expense of my own worth.
May I have the courage to release what no longer serves me, the humility to change when truth asks me to, and the compassion to remember that I, too, belong within the circle of my own care.
And if those prayers return to me someday, carried on the winds of time like an echo across the canyon…
May I recognize them as the life I was quietly building all along.
Discernment
And perhaps that’s the larger lesson.
This was never really about food.
It was about learning the difference between living by my values and living inside an identity.
It was about realizing that integrity isn’t rigidity. It isn’t clinging to a decision simply because it once defined you. Integrity is having the courage to let your values evolve as your understanding deepens.
That lesson has quietly found its way into every corner of my life.
Age has taught me that not all things that sparkle are gold. Some opportunities are expensive. Some relationships are costly. Some identities become cages. Wisdom is learning the difference.
I’m learning that growth isn’t just about what we add to our lives.
It’s also about what we’re willing to release.
I’m letting go of anything that asks me to compromise my self-worth.
Anything that causes me to question my value.
Anything that expects me to give endlessly while offering little in return.
I’m no longer interested in relationships, jobs, expectations, or even identities that leave me more drained than fulfilled.
The older I get, the more I realize that the healthiest choices—whether they’re about food, work, relationships, or the stories we tell ourselves—have something in common.
They nourish life.
Including my own.
For much of my life, I believed love meant endurance. That compassion meant sacrificing myself. That if I just gave a little more, understood a little more, or waited a little longer, things would eventually become reciprocal.
I don’t believe that anymore.
Real love—whether it’s a friendship, a career, a partnership, or even the relationship we have with ourselves—doesn’t require us to abandon ourselves to earn our place.
Growth Rarely Arrives Wrapped in Comfort
This month also marks my first anniversary with Goddess Rocks Catering and Gateway Studios.
What a year it has been.
I’ve been stretched, challenged, humbled, exhausted, inspired, and given opportunities I never imagined.
Like the old Timex commercials used to say, “It takes a licking and keeps on ticking.” Some years feel exactly like that.
They test you, wear you down, and ask more of you than you think you have to give. And somehow, when you look back, you realize you didn’t just endure them—you were shaped by them.
And then there is my son.
Many of you know he had planned to join the Navy.
We made the difficult decision to step away from that path—for now.
We’ve come to understand that anxiety isn’t always something to simply push through. Sometimes it is the body’s way of protecting us from a wound that has never fully healed.
When my son was thirteen, he expressed suicidal thoughts on social media.
Like any parent, I was terrified.
The response at the time was rooted in a “scared straight” approach. Police came to our home, hoping that fear would become a deterrent.
Instead, fear became the wound.
Looking back, I don’t believe anyone involved intended to cause harm. I believe they were trying to help with the understanding they had.
But trauma doesn’t measure intentions.
It measures experiences.
Years later, we can still trace much of his anxiety back to that day. His mind understands he’s safe. His nervous system isn’t convinced yet.
That’s why we’ve chosen a different path.
We’re choosing healing before achievement.
Not punishment.
Not fear.
Healing.
As I think about stories like Megan Meier’s, I’m reminded how easily we can underestimate what young people are carrying and how profoundly words, experiences, and the digital world can shape a developing mind.
Children don’t need to be frightened into wanting to live.
They need to know they’re safe enough to heal.
As part of that journey, we’re looking into Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), an evidence-based approach to treating trauma. Rather than simply revisiting painful memories,
CPT helps people identify the beliefs that trauma leaves behind—the quiet stories we begin telling ourselves about safety, trust, control, and our place in the world.
Those beliefs often outlive the event itself. The goal isn’t to erase the past, but to help the mind and body recognize that the danger is over, allowing old wounds to heal instead of continuing to shape the present.
Medication absolutely has its place, and for many people it is life-changing. But I also believe that whenever possible, we should ask why before we only ask how do we manage this? Sometimes healing begins by uncovering the wound instead of simply learning to live around it.
Integration
Looking back over this year, I realize that has been my lesson too.
Healing requires honesty.
Sometimes honesty asks us to change our minds.
Sometimes it asks us to soften.
Sometimes it asks us to release identities that no longer fit.
Sometimes it asks us to stop identifying with the person we were long enough to become the person we are becoming.
My tarot card for this month was actually two that came out together The Empress and The World.
The Empress teaches us to nurture life.
Not just gardens, children, or ideas—but the whole ecosystem of our lives.
She reminds us that what we feed grows.
If we feed resentment, resentment flourishes.
If we feed fear, fear expands.
If we feed compassion, curiosity, wisdom, and love, those take root as well.
The Empress doesn’t ask us to sacrifice ourselves in service of life.
She asks us to participate in it. To care for our bodies, our relationships, our work, our communities, and the earth with the same reverence. She understands that nourishment isn’t selfish; it’s the very thing that allows us to continue giving.
Perhaps that’s why she appeared for me this month.
She wasn’t asking me to become someone different.
She was asking me to tend more carefully to the life I’ve already been given.
The World is the final card in the Major Arcana—the completion of the Fool’s Journey.
After innocence and experience, after love and loss, after certainty and doubt, after building, breaking, and beginning again, the Fool arrives at The World.
Not because life is finished.
But because something within has become integrated.
The World teaches us what it means to become whole.
Not perfect.
Whole.
There is a profound difference.
Wholeness isn’t the absence of struggle. It isn’t getting everything right, never changing your mind, or finally arriving at a place where life becomes easy.
It’s the quiet realization that the pieces of your life no longer have to compete with one another.
Your values and your health.
Your compassion and your boundaries.
Your heart and your wisdom.
Your past and your future.
The World reminds us that maturity isn’t about becoming someone else. It’s about gathering every lesson, every heartbreak, every joy, every mistake, and every triumph into a life that finally feels authentic.
Nothing wasted.
Nothing denied.
Everything transformed into wisdom.
Perhaps that’s why this card appeared for me this month.
Not because my journey is over, but because I can finally see how every chapter—even the ones I would never choose to relive—has shaped the person I’m still becoming.
Wholeness isn’t perfection.
It isn’t getting everything you wanted.
It isn’t winning every battle.
It’s reaching a place where your values, your choices, your body, your heart, and your life are finally speaking the same language.
Maybe that’s what August is.
Not a month of endings.
A month of integration.
A reminder that growth isn’t measured by how tightly we hold onto who we were, but by how courageously we become who we are.
Here’s to another lap around the sun.
May we all have the courage to heal.
The humility to change.
The wisdom to release what no longer serves us.
And the grace to become whole.
One Thoughtful Choice at a Time
So…why am I telling you all of this?
Because I want to be real.
I’ve reached a place in life where authenticity matters more to me than consistency for its own sake.
If my understanding grows, I want to grow with it.
If my body changes, I want to honor it.
If new information asks me to reconsider an old belief, I want to have the courage to ask better questions instead of clinging to familiar answers.
That doesn’t mean my values have changed.
It means they’ve matured.
As I continue writing and sharing recipes, you’ll probably notice the occasional sustainably sourced fish or shrimp dish alongside the tofu, tempeh, beans, grains, and vegetables that have always filled my kitchen.
Don’t worry—plants aren’t going anywhere.
Neither is my commitment to living as thoughtfully and conscientiously as I know how.
For me, this has never been about perfection.
It has always been about intention.
About trying to leave the world a little kinder than I found it.
About making choices that honor not only the planet and the creatures we share it with, but also the life I’ve been given to live.
That’s the kind of authenticity I hope to keep practicing.
One thoughtful choice at a time.
