Part Success Story, Part Cautionary Tale

About a year ago, I read "The China Study," and decided, for health reasons initially, to adopt a plant based diet - and then I freaked out a little because I really had no idea what was left to eat!

I checked out every vegan and vegetable-friendly recipe book I could request from the surrounding libraries, listened to vegetarian podcasts, and learned an insane amount of things that have changed my life and my health, in dramatic ways.

One of the books I found at our local library was Thrive, by vegan ultra-marathon runner, and professional triathlete Brendan Brazier, whom I had the great honor of meeting this last week.

I was an embarrassing, stuttering, giddy, mess - and he was very gracious, and nice to me anyway.

I told him about the changes that I have made in my health and fitness, and how inspired I was by him and his books - that it was so great to have the opportunity to meet an author and thank them in person - and he signed my book. Someone I met at the training for the 1/2 marathon was there, and she described me as one of his success stories - but socially embarrassing cautionary tale, could also fit; because, did I mention the stuttering? Kind of embarrassing - but I figure, everyone has at least a few celebrities, authors, musicians, etc. with whom they would turn into total geeks in front of, right? I'm thinking of Beatlemania, and suddenly feeling comparatively, psychologically healthy - and yet, I should probably still get out more.

But I'm working on that too.

I exchanged phone numbers with the women I had met at the 1/2 marathon training group - and we made tentative plans to go on a 12 mile run together before Christmas - and I got a phone number from a vegan cooking instructor and mom who has a son my son's age, who wants to get together for a playdate sometime. Two phone numbers, from two cool women, something like two days after totally complaining on the blog about not having any friends in Sacramento.

Pretty sweet.

And - what's even cooler, is that I didn't make these friends by pretending to be anything other than me - the only real way to make real friends, in my opinion.

My favorite line from Robin Williams' movie, "The Worlds' Greatest Dad," a lot funnier and darker of a movie than it's happy-go-lucky title would imply, reminds me of this. His character says, "I used to think that the worst thing in life was to end up all alone. It's not. The worst thing in life is ending up with people who make you feel all alone."

Right now, I don't have a lot of friends in Sacramento, and the friendships that I do have are fragile and new - but I have friends, good friends, who love me for who I am, and I am not alone - although I do spend a lot of time by myself.