When I was three, food was my favorite thing in the world. The smells, colors, and, of course, the tastes! Coming home from preschool and smelling the warm aroma of my mother's homemade pizzas was euphoric. Restaurants were where I had my birthday parties. Good food brought people together. The warmth transferred from the food and onto my friends and family. The dinner table brought out stories of times that I didn't remember or weren't there for. It wasn't the food that I liked, but the conversations and stories it brought. When I was ten though, food became my enemy. Family and friends made side comments about my weight. The people I shared the dinner table with, didn't like the way I looked at the table. The food wasn't the problem, it was me. There were sly comments and maneuvered removals of food on my plate. Until, suddenly, they didn't have to remove it. I gave myself smaller and smaller portions, until one day there was no food at all. Instead of food making me feel good, the absence of it was the only part that mattered. The dinner table was now filled with comments filled with admiration for the weight I had lost. I no longer smelled the warm aroma. I could only feel my dry throat trying to swallow food it didn't want. When I did eat, I'd sit in my bathroom for hours staring at the toilet. I hoped that I could just throw it up. My transgression could be forgotten then, but I could never do it. Instead, I cried. Food and the absence of it now tasted like salt. Salty tears down my dry throat. The warm aroma is a distant memory. Food is cold and the dinner table a battlefield because now my new "diet" is starting to look like a "problem". Food is no longer a present but a punishment. Eating like it's normal is the biggest challenge I have ever faced. I wonder if I'm the only one who can see the change in our dinner table?