June 7, 2015
(last updated June 23, 2021) 
Last year’s birthday post was both difficult and easy to write. Difficult because I was recounting my rejection from med school, which had been painful, but easy because there was no doubt that my year had been oriented around that single experience. This year’s post has been a little harder to start and finish, because the twelve months behind me feel varied and complicated and hard to sum up.
I guess you could say that the theme of my 33rd year was homecoming. After nearly four years of feeling uprooted and stalled, stuck in the odd limbo of a second undergraduate career and the medical school application process, it was time to regroup. My post-bacc changed me in ways that I only fully realized after it was over. I left the process tougher in some ways but mostly a lot more vulnerable.
In August of this year, I came back to New York. People asked me how it felt to be back—was it different? The same? At first, I was quick to respond that things were mostly the same, because on the surface, they were. I was living in the same neighborhood I lived in before I moved to DC. I returned to old friends, to my mom, to the city I love. And I dove back into the work I’d been doing before pre-med changed everything: my nutrition counseling practice, my blog, recipe development, and freelance writing.
At the same time, a lot wasn’t the same. For the first time in my life, I was living with a significant other, which was about both lovely and also challenging (more on that below). And even though I was doing the same work, I was doing it with a very different sense of purpose. Before my post-bacc, my nutrition work had always been circumscribed by my editorial job, which was full time. During my post-bacc, everything took second place to the stresses and pressures of school.
All of a sudden, nutrition work was my whole career. It was a big shift for me, and the pressures associated with doing it full time were surprising. My blog began exclusively as a passion/hobby, and even after I started to professionalize it in some ways (with my nutrition counseling), the fact that I had another job allowed me to keep it mostly within the realm of pleasure. I want my blog to remain a source of pleasure for as long as I write it, which I hope will be good long time. But there’s no denying that professionalizing something changes your relationship with it. It reminds me of how I felt when I got a full time publishing job. You go into publishing because you love to read, but when you start reading manuscripts for a living, you inevitably stop reading for pleasure. It’s hard to strike a proper balance between professional immersion and personal interest.
For the first time, I felt compelled to make my blog and my nutrition work a success—not just a personal success, in the sense of creating food and words and counsel I was proud of. I also had to make a living with it, and that was new. The anxieties were strong this fall, as I reframed my professional goals. In one weekend reading post, I mentioned an article I’d read about composite professional identities, which are more and more common in our day and age. I commented on this because my own professional identity was very much on my mind. As someone who has always taken comfort (however insecurely) in having a clear role and a clear title, I wasn’t really sure how to make sense of my work, which usually involves several different projects and objectives at any given time.
Over time, I started to adjust. I was able to see what a profound blessing it is that I can do work that I enjoy and care about. I was also able to see that, even when the work feels disjointed, it is really unified, brought together by my passion for food. I learned how to adjust my expectations of what it means to work for oneself. There’s this idea, I think, that self-employment is all passion and fulfillment, when in fact, working for oneself is full of all of the ups and downs of any other job. As with any job, there are projects that feel rewarding and some that don’t, some days that move fluidly and others that drag. That’s the reality, and it’s all good.
Throughout all of this, I settled into the first real, mature partnership I’ve ever had. When I met Steven last winter, I wasn’t looking for a serious relationship—in fact, I felt pretty ambivalent about how much I wanted to be involved with anyone, in any capacity. I’m so glad that I kept an open mind as Steven and I got to know each other; after a few dates it felt clear to me that he was very special, and that I’d be a fool not to allow our relationship to deepen and grow. Grow we did, and after only a few months we were discussing moving to New York and living together. The decision demanded a bold level of trust from us both, and we we’re lucky that it turned out so well—even if we sort of knew it would.
A lot of my friends asked me, once Steven and I had been living together for a few months, how I felt about the transition to cohabitation. My answer was that it wasn’t hard in any of the ways I thought it would be, and it was hard in others. Contrary to all of my lifelong fears about living with a significant other, I did not feel deprived of privacy, “me time,” or space. I was not restless, and I didn’t miss my independence; in fact, what I realized is that I had been confusing the state of independence with the state of being by myself. I feel as independent as I did before I started dating Steven, except now we have a life that we also share, and our shared existence enriches my private one.
What has been hard is having a mirror in the form of a partner/roommate. Living alone for an extended period of time can cloud one’s self-awareness. It’s easy not to question behaviors and tendencies. It’s easy to be selfish. It’s easy to allow certain habits to become calcified. The hardest part of cohabitation, for me, is that it has forced me to become more conscious of some of my less flattering angles: my stubbornness, my dramatic shifts in mood, my propensity to obsess and worry and overthink. This is consciousness is heightened by the fact that Steven and I have different foibles. He is not a worrier or a wallower, and he does not intensify his troubles by overthinking them, as I do. He has his own stuff, of course, but the fact that he is so remarkably even tempered makes me aware of how stormy and stressed my own temperament can be. It’s not something I want to change, exactly, but I’d like to temper it, to learn how better to distinguish between things that are worth obsessing over and things that aren’t.
Overall, though, settling into my life with Steven has been a sweet, sweet journey. I was never sure that I wanted to spend my life with someone romantically, perhaps because I hadn’t been in relationships that instilled enough trust or inspired enough happiness to push me in that direction. And I like being alone—too much, sometimes—so I didn’t have a fundamental predisposition to partner up. Steven has shown me how delightful it can be to share one’s experience intimately with another person, even if it’s also sometimes more challenging than processing everything on one’s own. He has embraced my whole and highly imperfect character, which shocked me at first and sometimes still does. My friend Victoria Moran has a quote that I love:
“To the people who love you, you are beautiful already. This is not because they’re blind to your shortcomings but because they so clearly see your soul. Your shortcomings then dim by comparison. The people who care about you are willing to let you be imperfect and beautiful, too.”
When I first read this, it touched me because I had not yet felt it in a romantic sense (I do feel it with my friends). Today, it touches me because it seems to capture the way that Steven regards me and treats me. This may be the essence of real, mature love between two people, but I have not always experienced love this way, and I don’t for a moment take it for granted.
This spring, after rekindling my counseling practice and considering how I’d like it to grow, I made the choice to begin an RD program this coming fall. I had quietly laid down the groundwork: when I got back to New York, I figured out which pre-reqs I’d still need to be eligible for RD programs, and I went about finishing up the last three classes at night. I was nervous about retaking biochemistry (a post-bacc nemesis) and about diving back into science courses in general, but the experience was actually rather redemptive. Without the incredible pressures of pre-med life, I was able to approach my classes more strategically and successfully. Much to my surprise, I had retained a lot of the knowledge that I struggled so hard to acquire the first time. I got into Columbia’s program in March, and I’ll be starting in September. I’ll be going to school part time, so that I don’t have to give up my counseling or the rest of my work. And I am very, very excited.
Before I did my post-bacc, I had been torn between pre-med and doing an RD. It’s amusing to me that today, just about five years later, I am finally perched on the cusp of an RD path. Perhaps I should have had the sense to see that this was a good fit for me all along, but I’m a firm believer that our detours in life often teach us more than our determined strides forward: at the very least, they show us more landscape. This fall, when I opened up my nutrition counseling to clients again, it became clear to me how passionately I love the work. I don’t know if the idea of a “vocation” is overly determined or not, whether it puts too much pressure on people. But if I have a vocation, it is helping other people to love food. Food writing is one dimension of this work; nutritional counseling is the other. I don’t know where the RD will take me, precisely—perhaps it will lead me into different kinds of eating disorder work, and perhaps it will simply enhance the work I’m doing now. But I know that I welcome the chance to deepen my nutrition education. For all of the struggles I’ve had as a science student, my perspective on nutrition is infinitely richer for it, and I know that I have a lot to learn.
Finally, this year presented me with a few notable blogging moments. I’m recounting them now because I use these birthday posts as a way of organizing my own understanding of the year behind me. In January, I wrote a new year’s post that ended up becoming my final farewell to the post-bacc experience, though I did not know it at the time. Until that point, I was still prone to passing pangs of pain and regret and envy when I thought about the whole med school rejection. That post was my closure, my own peacemaking with the process. My post-bacc remains a vivid memory, but not a painful one. (It is, in fact, a frequent source of amused storytelling.) I don’t know if I think things happen for a reason, per se, but I do know that I have been delivered to a very fortunate place, and my post-bacc had a lot to do with that.
This year also marked some strides forward in ED recovery. In sharing life with Steven, I’ve learned to also share food, which means letting go of some of my own rules (there were more of them than I realized). I’m eating more diversely and with more freedom, which is wonderful. I also got better at facing my body this year, which was made evident when I took a yoga class in a sports bra for the first time in my life. It sounds silly, I know, but the experience signified a lot of deeper stuff, for me. I learned to bounce back more effectively from bad body days. Finally and most importantly, I shared my own Green Recovery story for NEDA week this year. Telling the tale consecutively and honestly felt very different from sharing in thematic bits and pieces, as I’ve done in the past. It was scary, but it was also really powerful, and I’m glad I did it.
I’ve mentioned several times now that my post-bacc changed the way I write and the way I blog. It made it harder to put myself out there, to assert opinions, to chronicle my life. I think part of this is the vulnerability that my post-bacc left me with, the tenderness you carry around after a deeply humbling experience. Part of it, I know, is simply getting older. The older we get, the less we know, or so they say. I see things with more nuance these days, and often with conflicted feelings and responses. This makes it harder to sum up my feelings and share them with an audience. When I look back at posts from 2009, they were so bold, so assertive, so confident. So little concern with how I’d be perceived. For better or for worse, I don’t feel brazen like that anymore. This year, I would like to bring my inner life back to this blog, while remaining true to the consideration and discretion that I’ve necessarily acquired. We’ll see how it goes.
So that, friends, is 33. I’ve written these birthday posts since I turned 30, and they have become a very special ritual for me. I know I always say this, but I feel so lucky to have you as readers. Thanks for letting me share another year with you.
xo
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Categories: Food and Healing
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I love you and your beautiful birthday posts. No one writes more genuinely than you Miss Gena. Xo (belated comment apologies)
I’m way behind on your blog but can’t miss your birthday post! Happy birthday!! And congrats on the RD program. I love the changes in you and in your style (nuance) that your discuss at the end of your post. Also loved this insight: “I had been confusing the state of independence with the state of being by myself.” I’m going to meditate on that one. And finally, congrats on the sports bra yoga class! That’s a goal I have. I started on it this year but taking my shirt of for savasana but some time I’ll do it for the whole class. Cheers to being courageous and vulnerable.
Happiest of birthdays too you beautiful soul. I can honestly say I really look forward to these posts each year. You have grown so much in your time as a blogger, and I have truly appreciated your openness, rawness and honesty you pour out into your writing. I have read your blog from the beginning, and feel that in a way I ‘know’ you. So it is always special when you discover something new about yourself and share it here. You have provided so much inspiration for me as you have weaved your way through your experiences – I hope you know how incredibly special your sharing has been, and how it has undoubtably giving those going through similar things a leg to stand on.
In short, thank you for being you, and for sharing all that you do on this blog. You have changed lives simply by living yours the way you do.
<3
What a beautifully written post this is!
Congratulations and Happy Birthday.
Happy birthday, Gena. I always (perhaps selfishly) love these birthday posts because we are very close in age (I turned 33 in March), and we are at similar transition points in our careers. I think the RD path is a great one for you, even if the route to it was circuitous. Having experienced nutrition counselling with you several years ago, I could tell you had a natural gift for it, which you’ve certainly cultivated even more since. I am excited to hear more about it as you go along.
I also always love to hear your reflections on relationships. It’s not easy living with someone when you’re fiercely independent, and I went through this too. Luckily I ended up with another fiercely independent person, so our struggle is more often making sure we compromise on some things together, rather than planning our own paths! Every successful relationship finds the balance that works for them; but more importantly, I think a good relationship sheds light on those things in yourself that you would like to improve. If this relationship has done that for you, then I take that as a good sign, rather than as a weakness or insecurity about yourself. What makes you “you” after all is not your worry, but your determination and passion that sometimes fuels it. And you can retain the latter without always giving in to the former.
Happy birthday! As usual I relate to way too much of what you’ve written here. I’m sending you an email Miss you dearie!
It can never be too late to wish you a happy birthday. and many many more great ones.
Happy birthday Gena! It was so lovely to read this post and especially how positive this year has been, even if challenging. I’ve lived on my own for quite a few years now and probably have some of the same worries that you had before you and Stephen started living together. It’s good to have a reminder that pushing the boundaries is so important and leads to good things!
Wishing you another happy, healthy year!
E x
Congratulations on so many happy, exciting things! That’s wonderful news about the RD program. I just finished up my internship (as a career changer; we are the same age) and am studying for my RD exam now. I’m so glad I did it. If you have any questions about the process, it’s still all fresh–feel free to email me!
A big congratulations to you for getting into the RD program! I’ve been a reader following since the beginning and I relate to so much of what you spoke about in this post. Isn’t it wonderful to share your life with someone and feel that it just supports you and makes life easier rather than being something that takes away energy from you or takes away independence? I feel so grateful to feel the same way with my partner.
I’ve had a similar experience with leaving a arts career to try to get prerequisites to get into an RD program (and to be honest your journey contributed to me feeling brave enough to take the plunge and do it) Taking the science prerequisites has been a roller coaster and huge challenge to say the least. I didn’t get the grades I had hoped for and was rejected from a program and am still waiting to hear back from others… trying to decide if I should try again next year or move on if I am rejected from every school. So thank you so much for sharing your journey. it’s inspiring and encouraging to hear from others going through the same thing. We have to own and embrace our “failures” – it’s all part of the process even if it hurts the ego to learn this. We learn anyway and something better may come out of it. Funny how life works sometimes. Very happy for you! All the best to you on your birthday!
Happy Birthday Gena! Wow – what a year for you. So much change and growth. I always pictured children as caterpillars who blossom into butterflies as adults, but it’s not true, we continually blossom as we are adults and settle into ourselves. That’s the most transformative and beautiful part, the part you’re experiencing right now.
And again, I’m so glad you and Steven found each other.
“I feel as independent as I did before I started dating Steven, except now we have a life that we also share, and our shared existence enriches my private one.”
You nailed it! I feel exactly the same way about my husband. I notice some people feel shackled down by their significant other, I love hearing people talk about how the one they’re with brings out the best in them.
Happy Birthday Gena and thank you for a lovely post. It’s neat to be a reader of your blog, following all these experiences you share, and then to have them recapped bringing back memories for how each of your significant posts left a mark on my life as well.
Congrats on starting toward RD at Columbia! I’m very excited for you and to see you continuing to benefit people daily with your work.
Happy Birthday Gena! Your writing is beautiful and inspiring as always. So much of this resonates with me. I especially love your line “I am a firm believer that our detours in life often teach us more than our determined strides forward: at the very least, they show us more landscape.” So true. Congrats on the RD program!
Gena,
Happy Belated Birthday! Big hug from New Orleans. Thank you for your honesty and heartfelt words. I’m so glad to hear that you’ll be an RD pretty soon. I thought it would take ages when I started….then suddenly it’s done. xo
I am excited to hear that you are going to become an RD. With all of your knowledge and experiences, you will be one of the best.
While I enjoy all of your writing, I especially appreciate the pieces where the answer isn’t necessarily clear, and the thought provoking articles you suggest in Weekend Reading. Thank you for sharing it all.
Happy birthday Gena! I’ve been reading your blog since 2010 and your sharing of yourself has been an ongoing inspiration. I love that you share your life with us, as well as all the amazing recipes, recommendations and vegan philosophy.
Happy Birthday, Gena! Though I rarely comment, I think of you often and continue to read regularly. I always appreciate these thoughtful, personal posts. So glad your path, however twisty it’s been or will be, has allowed you to stay close to your passion. Many hugs.
As always, your writing touches so many familiar chords. As I find myself in my first long-term, mostly cohabiting relationship, I have also realized the stubborn tendencies I developed over the years and the fluctuations in my mood. I’m working on developing a more easy going center and forgiving myself when I don’t achieve that every day. I’m also working on trusting that my partner loves me through it all.
Happy birthday! You are strong and brave and resilient and I admire and respect you so.
Happy, happy birthday. Though I have been reading this blog for a long time I have commented only once before. This beautiful post and your birthday seem to be a nice opportunity to thank you for great readings throughout the years. Thank you. Best wishes 🙂
Beautiful post!! Very raw, honest and sincere, Thank you for sharing such a post. Congrats on the RD program! Excited to see what is to come in the year ahead!
Aw, happy 33rd! 33 is a great year. Enjoy it! And I’m so happy that you’re doing so well in all aspects of your life. I agree that cohabitation definitely makes you more aware of your own weird stuff. I’ve been cohabiting with partners (Paul for 11 years and my past partner for 6) for years, and I still haven’t moved past some of the stuff that I’m certain makes me annoying to live with.
Thanks for a beautiful recounting of your year, Gena. Happy Birthday, with love and best wishes for many more illuminating returns of this day. xo
Thank you for such a frank and inspiring post. I’ve followed your blog for many years, even before I was fully vegan, and I cannot tell you grateful I am for it and for you. Honestly, I’m so excited that you are going for an RD program and that you have shared your process and journey to this point. You are going to be an absolutely wonderful RD! Happy Birthday!!!! (:
Congratulations on the RD program and happy birthday! As someone else prone to overthinking and wanting to have direction, I cherish every post you’ve written about your professional journey and its intersection with your thoughts about your life in general. It inspires me as a move along a similar path.
You will never stop evolving, growing, and loving dear!
Happy birthday to such a beautiful soul! XOXO
Great post! Happy birthday from Brazil! You’re always an inspiration to me!
“This year, I would like to bring my inner life back to this blog, while remaining true to the consideration and discretion that I’ve necessarily acquired. We’ll see how it goes.”
Candor is an art shaped by skilled editing, not a quantity or a frame of mind. (We’re all shocked—and at least a little embarrassed—by our 20s. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, after all.) You’re totally equipped for this, and I, for one, look forward to it.
Happy belated, lady.
Such an eloquent recap of the past year full of humble yet incredibly self-aware insight–just what I’ve come to expect from you. Happy Birthday, Gena!
Dear friend,
It is always interesting and often challenging (in the good way) to read your more introspective posts. This one has me remembering my own long-past 33rd during which I changed life-partners, professions and even, briefly, continents!
I can’t thank you enough for the intelligent and kind counsel you’ve provided as I strengthen my commitment to veganism. Though I’d been bumbling along on my own for quite a while I gradually realized that I needed someone knowledgeable to assess, then direct me toward far better habits and I thank myself frequently for daring to embark on that journey with you. Your courage, vulnerability and knowledge are a potent and inspiring combination. I look forward to discovering what your future will reveal. Happiest birthday wishes to you!
Most fondly,
M.
Very happy birthday and exciting year ahead! I too can relate to feeling less and less self-assured and confident with each passing year of my 30’s. And what a relief it has been! Many blessings to you in this special year.
Great post.Happy birthday and thanks for sharing.
Happy Birthday Gena… this was beautifully written!
Such a great post and it was so great seeing you at Vida Vegan Con! Happy Birthday and thanks for being such an awesomely inspiring blogger. 🙂
happy birthday, gena! i remember last year’s birthday post so well, because it was so honest and inspiring. it seemed like you were on the cusp of exciting change while also dealing with some pretty crushing disappointment. i hope you have a fabulous year and i can’t wait to read about your continued adventures 🙂
happy, happy, happy birthday to you. I am so touched by your words every time, and so honored that you choose to share them with us time and again 🙂
Oh Gena – what a beautiful post. It all resonates, but especially this line
“I am a firm believer that our detours in life often teach us more than our determined strides forward: at the very least, they show us more landscape.” … in 2001 I deferred law school to go into a Master’s program – and spent the entire year wishing I was a 1L as the Master’s program was not a great fit for me AND I just had this nagging sense I should be in law school. So to law school I went, feeling terrible about the waste of that year, and knowing it was unlikely I would have the resources to finish said Master’s degree. 2002-2003 was one of my most humbling years, well, ever (though 2005-2011 were no picnic either) and one of the things I held onto was that I had spent the previous year wishing I was in law school. That detour to grad school had shown me the landscape most law students think about on a bad day – knowing I had lived the landscape and not enjoyed grad school was a huge help in law school. And, years later, that grad school year is a year which I look back on as one of personal rather than academic growth, which is ok (spoiler alert, I never finished the degree. I so rarely get asked about it half the time I forget about that year from a resume perspective).
Happy Birthday. Hope we get to catch up in person this year 🙂
Beautiful post! Congrats on the RD program and a year of awesome growth.