Switched Plates

Monday morning, while I enjoyed my smoothie of spinach, soy milk, chocolate brown rice powder, blueberries, strawberries and a little bit of silken tofu, I gazed out the window and reflected about my diet's well... journey for lack of a better term. I thought about how I got to the point of drinking smoothies every morning. How great it feels to have a nourishing, healthy blend of foods to start my day. I also thought about how in 2008, I had absolutely no meat.
Though I became vegetarian at the start of 2007, I had meat that year when I went to Japan. My boyfriend at the time teaches English there, and one of his students invited us over for dinner. He was a very sweet man with a wonderful family. Unfortunately even though my boyfriend said we were vegetarian, they didn't really understand. They fed us meat. Since refusing food offered is one of the ultimate rude things to do in Japan, we ate it. I felt sick afterward. It was probably more of a mental thing, but I just didn't feel right.
That was the last time I had eaten meat, that is until Monday night. I went to an Italian restaurant. After making sure the marinara wasn't made with meat stock, I ordered Eggplant Parmesan while my friend ordered chicken. Not sure exactly what his meal was, I didn't really pay attention. Anyway when we got our plates they looked totally the same. Long plate with a thin something covered in cheese and marinara.
So I cut into my eggplant and noticed it was really hard. I thought, 'Wow, they really screwed this up.' I inspected the substance on my fork. It was thin enough to be eggplant, it kinda looked like eggplant, so not really thinking much further, I put it in my mouth and chewed. It was so tough! Then I really inspected the plate, the waiter came over. Then I looked at my friend, and realized, they had switched the plates. I started shaking and almost crying. Tears welled up and I was on the verge of hyperventilating. I was just so upset, I felt silly and stupid and duped all at the same time. The waiter quickly switched the plates and apologized. Then he ran into the kitchen and I heard him yelling something like, "I've gotta girl out here crying cause she ate meat!" I think it was more about him telling them to be more careful than annoyance over how upset I was. At any rate they still charged us full price. I felt bad about arguing simply because it's a small local establishment, these are hard times, and there was only one other couple seated.
For the rest of the night I felt sick like I had that time in Japan. I could clearly visualize the meat floating around my stomach. It felt foreign, and wrong and I just wanted it to be gone. People ask me if I'll ever eat meat again, and I honestly can't foresee myself at this point making a conscious decision to eat meat. It feels like a step backwards. I'm still upset over Monday, but there's nothing I can do. I trusted the waiter, especially after he made sure for me the marinara was okay to eat. It wasn't on purpose, but I'm never going back to that place again.