When I wrote about my Las Vegas trip, Hilary wanted to hear more about how I deal with my family.

It’s easy: I don’t.

I’m not an Arizona native. I moved here about four years ago in order to attend Arizona State University. After I graduated I decided that, because I like the Boy so much, I would stay. My family lives in my home state: Mom, one of my uncles, and my grandmother live in one town and the rest of them live in another town. Going to see my mom, grandmother, and uncle takes an entire day; the rest of my family an entire day plus three or four hours. I don’t go “home” much and I haven’t been there since February. I haven’t been to the town where the rest of my family lives in YEARS.

When I was banded in June, my mom came down but didn’t tell the rest of my family that there was a specific reason (can’t a mom visit her daughter?). There are several reasons why I’ve decided not to tell them, many of which involve money and discussing how I can afford to have surgery while struggling to pay my bills every month. There is no way that would go well unless I said insurance paid for it. But that would be a lie, which I try to avoid.

I weigh around the same now as I did the last time I saw many of my family members, so I wasn’t concerned about them noticing a loss. Those who saw me when I was much closer to 300 pounds didn’t comment about my size–I really doubted they would notice.

I was a little worried about having a stuck episode in Vegas, but I wasn’t REALLY worried about it; we make an effort for everyone to get together at one meal and I figured I’d be able to find some kind of slider food that would go down easily. Luckily, the first night we all ate at a buffet. I grabbed some lunch meat and cheese, sat across from one of my uncles, and said something about how I wasn’t very hungry. The next night, six of us went to see a show and ate at another buffet after.

I sat across from the same uncle with my sparsely covered plate. “That’s not all you’re going to eat, is it?”

I froze.

“Maybe,” I replied.

And there it ended. I did get up and find more to slide on through and I do think that he would have said something if I hadn’t.

———–

I can only speculate but I think that, money issues aside, my family would be very supportive of my decision should I tell them. I have been overweight for more than 20 of my 26 years on the planet and I think my obesity concerns them. I do think that certain members would criticize my food decisions from time to time. I do think that would annoy me. But I know that they would be trying to come from a helpful place rather than a critical one, no matter what it seemed like to me.

Not much of an epic tale of woe, and it doesn’t help give others ideas about how to deal with their family members. What can I say, I’m a master at avoidance :)

What about the rest of you? How do you deal with your family members?