When I first became a vegetarian I think more than a few people had some assumptions about the reasons I was becoming one. And when I say reasons, I mean reason. And by reason, I mean they thought that my girlfriend was making me become one.
Imagine, a guy like me, wanting to become a vegetarian on his own? No, what my friends and family thought (and some still think, I think) was that I was the henpecked guy, "Yes dear, if you want to be a vegetarian I'll do it too. Anything for you, dear."
I think I've made it clear before that I became a vegetarian for reasons originating entirely within my own mind and at the chagrin rather than the charge of my girlfriend. She loves meat, loved cooking it, and even if she didn't she would never demand, ask, or imply that I should do something so drastic with my life choices.
So it's totally untrue that she forced me to become a vegetarian, but I'd be lying if I said she didn't make me one. She didn't make me one by telling me, she made me one by allowing me to be one.
That sounded more poetic in my mind. Let me try to explain.
I never would have had the self discipline to manage to be a vegetarian alone--I never even would have made it to the point of trying it, I'd have been embarrassed, I'd have felt stupid and hypocritical. What my girlfriend did was give me the strength to do something that I wanted to do with my life, she never judged me or doubted me and wanted only to help me to achieve my goal.
Without her, I never would have been able to do it. She is the reason I was able to stop eating meat.
Because she loves me.
And man, do I ever, ever, ever love her. It's not the doe-eyed love I used to crave when I was younger, not the weird, confused, misunderstanding of love I had when I was a kid. It's the love that gives me the strength to do something as hard as becoming a vegetarian after a lifetime of loving meat. It's the way that I can lie in bed next to her and talk to her about videogames or Pathfinder or some stupid article I read on the internet about how bees can talk by dancing and she never complains or ignores me but listens and remembers and hears what I say.
And it is a love that makes me want her to tell me about how to cook lintels. To tell me how to mix icing and water and food coloring to make cookies that pop with color and brightness. It's a deep and firm love that lets me look over at her after a day of work when she's tired and worn down, with her hair hanging in limp strands around a face with streaked makeup and want nothing more than to kiss her and stroke her chin with my hands and remember how incredibly smart and funny and sexy and exciting she is--this girl who deserves a guy I can never be but who gives me the strength and the confidence to try to be him without ever doubting me or wanting anything other than for me to succeed in anything I'm trying to do.
She's an incredible girl, this girl of mine. I cannot begin to say how strong she is, what she deals with and how she faces it with such dignity and humor. I am proud of her every day, and always, always striving to be the guy she thinks I am (I think she's crazy). I keep waiting for her to see in the mirror what I see in her face every day--a girl who's the best in the world--and for her to tell me to get lost, she has bigger fish to fry. But she won't, because she loves me just as much as I love her.
I don't know why she does, but as long as she does I know we can face the world and do all the things we want to do, together.
And in love.
