Scene of the Crime

My parents have lived in the same house for 33 years. I was 3 1/2 when they built the house and I have considered it "home" since then (despite only really using it as my residence until age 16).

I love this house, it is full of amazing memories. There is no place in the world I feel more comfortable.

It is also full of many bad habits. It was in this house that I became overweight. Here is where I snuck food and hid food, where I developed incredibly destructive habits. All these years later, despite all I know about nutrition and all I have come to terms with about my own behaviors I often revert back to childlike mistakes about food when I am at my parents' house.

Not all the food memories there are bad, there are 33 years of holidays, birthdays and celebrations. I can vividly remember every cake and cookie we so lovingly crafted in the ever-evolving kitchen (now beautifully modern). I have recently learned that "emotional eating" does not just apply when the emotions are negative, relating food to happy times is just as psychological.

I am trying to break these connections to food and still hold on to the security and innocence of my childhood when I visit my parents. There is something so comforting about falling asleep under the roof that protected me at 3. I am trying to extricate my best self from the many versions of me that have walked those halls.