When I first created this food blog 15 years ago, I had no idea the impact it would have on me and my career. For one, I had just been laid off from a job I thought I’d have for the rest of my life (Spoiler Alert: I’m a Gen Xer and an only child of a mother who had a 42+ year career at one place). I had no idea what I was a) going to do and b) doing. And now, as I look back over this 15-year journey, I still don’t always know what a) I am going to do and b) am doing. I reckon that’s the same for most of us if we are being honest with ourselves and each other.

But what I do know is that I have been so fortunate to have had food as a foundation for this journey. I first entered the food world a bit naïve and ignorant. I also entered the journey with curiosity, hope, excitement, and a willingness to learn. Along this journey, I found a community willing to help guide, caution, and walk alongside me. I found a community ready to cancel me. I found a community that held me, believed in me, and told me the truth. And every year I found a community that inspired and grew with me.

In many ways, this blog has been more like a public diary of sorts. I’m afraid to even look at some of the earlier posts, but I imagine they’d reflect an incredible journey I wouldn’t trade for anything. It is real and authentic, and I’ve learned that those two things are incredibly important to me. I imagine they’d reflect a person courageous enough to live a life out loud – for all to see – and that’s been important to me as well.

Our lives are curated by so many things these days – social media posts, filters on our photos, and carefully constructed words so that we never mess up in public for fear of being canceled, bullied, and written off. I think about the many ways I’ve messed up publicly over the years and wonder if I’d be the same person now had that not happened. I worry about my kids living in a world that is so unforgiving and yet so very public. How in the world can anyone win? My guess is that you can’t and if we are to live courageously, we must be willing to expose all the parts of ourselves – the good, the bad, the ignorant, the curious, the everything in between.  And isn’t that how we learn? Isn’t that how we share our experiences? Isn’t that how we live life out loud – for all to really see – with no filters or curated content?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

Maybe this world is made up of people willing to live out loud so that others don’t have to. Maybe it is too dangerous for some to live as out loud as others. Maybe this is part of the journey too – being in community with others. Anyway – what in the world is this post about? I think it’s about me acknowledging that Food Revival doesn’t have to fit in any boxes. My Food Revival journey has been just that – a revival! A discovery. A journey. An inspiration. A foundation. A life lived – a life changed – a life evolved – and a life ready for more of all of that.

Just look at the tags on the right side of this page and you will see how this journey has shifted and changed and the experiences and inspiration that made it so.  Rather than look at them and feel embarrassed, I am going to feel/express gratitude for them. I’m going to feel and express gratitude for me. I am going to feel and express gratitude for the many individuals and experiences that got me to this place today. And I’m going to feel and express gratitude for a big, wide, and complex world full of lessons, experiences, and tender/hard moments.  And I’m going to feel and express gratitude for all that I have left to learn and the new tags I will add in the years to come.

It does take courage to do all these things and not in the kind of way courage has traditionally showed up in our language and deeds, but in the way poet and author David Whyte defines it:

“Courage is the measure of our heartfelt participation with life, with another, with a community, a work; a future.”

And

“Courage is what love looks like when tested by the simple everyday necessities of being alive.”