I’m visiting my parents for the weekend. To say that my diet will likely be ‘off track’ is an understatement. It’s a bit of a stereotype, but it’s true - my mother is Asian and shows her love through food. Whenever I visit, she makes all of my favorite unhealthy meals and I go home a few pounds heavier than I came there with.
I remember how it felt to stress about being with my parents. Like any parent/child relationship, there were conflicts & issues that I found to be very triggering. They also kept a lot more food in their house than I dared to keep in mine and I would regularly binge/purge whenever I would visit. The weeks before were fraught with anxiety, especially during holidays when the only thing I was focused on was trying to figure out how I could get out of eating. For years, I worried more about my weight than about bonding with my family and enjoying our time together.
And then they moved 1000 miles away. I got to see my parents once a year, maybe twice if I was lucky. I am an only child and although I was always independent, I am very close to them. I missed them like crazy. I thought for so long about all of the time I spent not cherishing the moments that we had together, yelling at my dad for making homemade popcorn for us to share just like he did when I was younger, or at my mom for daring to put a drizzle of oil in what she was cooking for dinner.
I recovered. Through a twist of fate, my parents lost their jobs down there and found another one close to where I had grown up. Now, they live about 200 miles from me and we try to visit about once a month. There are still conflicts & annoyances that get the best of me, but I try to enjoy the time that we have. I don’t stress about the food anymore and know that these will be memories that I will look back on fondly once they are gone. You never know how much longer you have with the people you love the most. Enjoy the moment, every part of it, while you can.
