My brother began his telephone assault two weeks before Thanksgiving, bothering me and my mother about coming down to his home an hour away.  I had my excuse ready, but I forgot that my brother’s brain is made of lead and he doesn’t get the point as easily as one might hope.  Two days later he’s asking me again if I’m coming to dinner.  ”If I’m up for driving that far, yes.  If not, no.”  That’s nicer than saying “I don’t want to be around your fake ass family for s’me ol’ bullshit that I could whip up right in my own kitchen and then eat it while I play games on my XBOX and not have to have my nerves wrecked by these people I share bloodlines with.”  Long story short, when he stopped bothering me I decided to go, and I was actually happy about going, and got excited as the day approached.  And I remained that optimistic until I crossed the threshold.

When I got out of the car I heard one of my nieces scream, she hadn’t seen me in over a year.  She ran outside to hug me and I was so glad to be there.  Then I got to the door and there was another niece standing there hugging my mother.  This particular one has an issue with me because she and I had words over me not coming to last year’s dinner.  Long story short but let’s just say that I was absolutely right, and she can’t apologize to save her life (that’s coming from her sisters, not me).  She sees me and does this very smooth shuffle away from the door so she doesn’t have to hug me, but can just say hi.  Oookay.  My brother is over the moon to see me and makes it known, as was his wife and various other family members, including my younger nieces and nephews.

My cousin shows up with his wife.  She hugs me, we talk, and then I hug him.  A few moments later, he asks me “So, you get anymore tattoos?”  I show him the one on my arm that I had done for a friend who was in a very serious motorcycle accident.  I said “Just this one but it was done last year.”  He says “Oh good, you’ve come to your senses.” ….hm.  Then the conversation turns to tattoos and how they just don’t belong in the workplace, with my sister-in-law saying that someone she hired and eventually became friends with has a tattoo on her leg, and that she told her if they had seen that during the interview she wouldn’t have given her the job.  My cousin’s wife pipes up and says “See, that should teach you not to judge a book by its cover,” which seemed to go right over my SIL’s head.  Another cousin comes up behind me,  says to her mother, my father’s sister, “Ooh look at the tattoo on her neck,” and then proceeds to tug my shirt down in the back so they can see what’s probably peeking out.  Mind you, I have a “Om Mani Padme Hum” in Tibetan Script on my neck and a lotus below it on my back.  My cousin at some point comes up behind me and grabs one of my dreadlocks and is pulling it for some odd reason, until I remove it from his hand and slap him.

So, the family had a lot of appetizers which we were all eating, and then it was almost time for dinner but no one was hungry, too many good appetizers, so we made a call and said “Buffet style!” and everyone could eat when they wanted to.  Some of us adjourn to the living room where a game of Monopoly was started.  I took a plate with me, which had taco dip on it, some tortilla chips, and a segment of a chicken wing.  One of my smaller nephews spills some pop on the table where the game is being played, so I stand up, I grab my plate and someone else’s, and a couple cups to take them into the kitchen.  My mother says “I think you need a longer shirt, hon” because my shirt had gone up to my waist, and my fat was grotesquely protruding over the cut of my low rise jeans.  Cuz shirts don’t go up when you sit down, and I had a third hand to pull it down so no one had to witness such a sight.  I was pissed.

Two hours later, the game is over and we all get up to eat.  I get some turkey, a piece of ham, a spoonful of stuffing, and a spoonful of mac and cheese.  I sit down to eat and now my father’s sister (shut up about it) says “Ohh you got yourself another plate of food huh?” and trust me when I say that her tone was to indicate that I was making a pig of myself.  I said “I just had appetizers, thought I’d have some real food now,” in an effort to keep things light.  Add some more fuel to my fire.  As I’m sitting there eating, my cousin again pulls my hair.  I slap his hand away.  Then he says “Why do you have those?” I said “Because I want them now leave my hair alone.”  ”How do you comb them?”  I say “You don’t, now quit being stupid.”  My cousin is 47 years old and last time I checked, a black man.  Don’t be an asshole.  He messes with my hair a few more times and I’m close to losing my shit, I can feel it.  I’ve been picked at all day and I’m over it.

Luckily the weather is getting bad, foggy, rainy, and I have an hour drive ahead of me, so I start getting my things together.  SIL makes me take food with me so I pretend to pack up some stuff just so she’ll feel better, and begin saying bye to my family.  Everyone hugs me except for the same niece who shuffled away from the door, she pretends to be asleep.  Oh yeah – she looked to see who was leaving and then put her head right back down.  Whatever.  I drive home, the whole way constantly swallowing saliva, and I know what that means… the second I get home and safely in my house, and securely in the bathroom, I throw up everything I ate while I was gone.

If that isn’t enough, today I call my sister to discuss our mother’s Christmas gift, and I told her about my surgical scars healing up well and that I was going to send her a photo.  She makes a comment about how her best friend looked at a photo I posted a few days after my latest surgery and asked if Frankenstein did my procedure.  As if half of her foot isn’t over the line, she then goes on to tell me about the photos of my “body parts” that I’ve posted online.  I said “What the hell are you talking about because I’ve NEVER done anything like that.”  First she can’t remember, then she comments on the photos I took, NINE YEARS AGO, of my surgical scars after my gastric bypass surgery.  I said “Your tone was as if I was posting photos of my vagina online,” and she remarks that I’ve just made choices that she would never make, “that’s all.”  So I tell her that I’m going to get off the phone because I’m mad, and I do just that.

Then I go to my photos that I’ve taken with my mobile phone and I see the photo I took of my scar after my breast reduction, then another photo where I’m in the ER because of cramps I’m having and I’m about to give a urine sample so I take a picture of me looking at the cup, and then another photo where I’m at the plastic surgeon’s office in a gown that’s too small, with what I thought was a funny look on my face, a photo I took once when I was in the process of getting a pap smear (cuz my doctor said to entertain myself so I did), and then it dawns on me… the one person in my family that I thought GOT me and took me as is…. DOESN’T.

I’m 41 years old and I know exactly who I am, what I like, and my sense of humor is unmatched.  And it’s disgusting that members of my family keep trying to cram me into a box that they can deal with and relate to instead of either realizing that they’re too rigid in their thinking or just deal with me being me and let it go.  Apparently to be in my family I need to remove my piercings, straighten my hair, have my tattoos lasered off, listen to strictly Hip hop, R&B and Soul, go to church and be a God fearing Christian, and show up at any and all family gatherings.  Oh and get a real job, the artsy thing has played itself out for too long.

Yeah.  I’m gonna get right on that.

And I’m bitchy.

Of course I knew there were going to be things I couldn’t do, things I’d have to rely on people to help me with, but what I had forgotten, after not having any type of surgery for 9 years, is that people are so damn fake with their well wishes and offers to do things for you.  Fake fake fake fake fake.  Fake face.  The day I was released, I didn’t know if my mom would be able to drive me home so I texted two people.  One called my mother immediately, and I know this because my mom was in my hospital room.  The other texted 5 hours later and asked how I was.  Mmmhmm.  Takes me back to that first surgery, when my so-called best friend lived two houses away, and I asked if she could come up and run my vac in two rooms since I wasn’t supposed to be doing anything like that.  She got mad.  Mad.  People will tell you anything to ingratiate themselves into your lives, but when the balls get smacked against the wall and it’s go time, that’s when you can tell your best friends from the fair-weather ones.  I asked my best friend to stop by tomorrow and pick up some things that I’ve dropped and can’t pick up.  She said “sure, no problem”.  That’s my girl!  Another friend would drop whatever she’s doing and come help me if I needed her to, but I haven’t asked her for any help because she lives a good distance away.  Other people who said before my surgery “Let me know if you need anything” were totally faking it.  That’s not what you tell someone.  You ask “Do you need anything?” Which sounds a lot better than “Hey, if you feel like bothering me later, cuz you need something, and are willing to chance that I’m not busy doing something else or am able to respond quickly, you let me know!”

And one person in particular, who I know is busy, and I really wouldn’t expect anything more than a “How ya feelin’?” from hasn’t said a word to me.  Not only have we been friends for 4 years now, when he stupidly sliced 4 of the 5 tendons in his hand from being a jackass and slamming a beer bottle down on a bar, I was at the hospital with him for 6 hours.  I was there after his wife came, after his bar pals left… I went home with his blood on my clothing, and haven’t heard a word from him.  When you’re recovering from surgery, it gives you a lot of time to think, and I think after I’m done thinking, there may be some changes happening.

Before things get better, there’s a period where it seems like they can’t get much worse, and I’m crashing into that area at an unprecedented speed.  I don’t like disliking people, and it bothers me when people dislike me.  Logically, I know I can’t make everyone in the World like me, and logically I know that people could dislike me for a number of reasons.  If I shoo someone out of my life, it’s never without careful consideration, or valid reasons, but it still bothers me.

I have just as much right as anyone else to be somewhat happy.  To not wake up every day and wonder who’s gunning for me.  I’m allowed to make decisions about who I want in my life and who I don’t, and as long as the reasons are real (unlike the person that used me for friendship while her sister wasn’t speaking to her and then gave me a big ‘fuck you’ for nothing), I shouldn’t feel bad or be compelled to explain.  I’d like to know what it feels like to wake up and the only immediate thought on my mind is what to have for breakfast, not who said what about me or what I have to defend myself against.  Personally I don’t think that’s a lot to ask of life.

Today I’ll actually have time to read my new favorite book, Women, Food, and God by Geneen Roth.  She has a lot of insight into food issues.  I told Oprah on Twitter that if this book ends up being another mistake (i.e. A Million Little Pieces) she’s gonna have to return my money to me.  Think she’ll pay up? haha

Going to a huge weekend party on Saturday, alcohol will indeed be consumed, but as long as no cigarettes are smoked, I can cite that as progress.

Only other thing going on is that I’m starting to hear my brain say “I told you so!” a lot in regards to people who I knew weren’t friends, but I tried to make them friends.  I always describe my friendships as a bullseye pattern – the ones in the center are the most important, and outward from the center is a natural drop in placement and importance.  Bullseye friends are the one who you call because the police are at your house and they come immediately.  They’re the ones who stand up for you against family when they know you’re right and their family is wrong.  They’re the ones who buy you dinner and expect nothing in return.  And I often try to pull people into my bullseye who don’t belong there.  So my brain has been telling me a lot that I should leave certain people on the outside of that bullseye pattern but I don’t listen, then once my heart realizes that the brain was right, there’s a horrible sound that happens in my head, almost like glass being crushed.  I really need to make an effort to stop doing that.  I’m sure that involves something from childhood too, after all, doesn’t everything?

The best thing I like about my life is that I have a chance to learn from it every day.

This day is sliding downhill fast.

Now I’m not saying that my weight is going determined by a set of outside forces, not at all. As anyone knows, when you rely on others for your happiness you are, other than stupid, giving too much responsibility to someone else to take “care” of you. But I know I overeat when I’m unhappy, so staying in the realm of bliss whenever possible will keep me from doing that which numbs me – diving into a bowl of whatever’s tasty and edible.

And since I haven’t eaten today, that is at the top of my priority list.

That made me think that what I’m really mad at is that I can’t go hang out with anyone I am close with, and the upsetting fact that I’m always single, always the third wheel. That I was going to be going to bed alone tonight knowing that no one is out there wishing they could be with me. I want to eat again but I’m not going to, I’m going to read some more, watch TV, and go to sleep, and hope that tomorrow I can at least feel what I’m feeling and face it without having to numb myself with food.

No, scratch that.  I’m bitter.  I’m furious.  I’m Hell on Wheels when I think about the state of my life.  I have a smile that prevents others from seeing it.  I self-censor myself every second of every day to keep anyone from hearing it.  But when I’m alone, and it’s just me and my truth, it’s a fact that can’t be denied.

I started this blog because I had things I wanted to say and no where to say them safely, without having to be careful what I said.  And boy, did I.  I said whatever I wanted, yet never felt any better.  That’s when I stopped writing and began coming to terms with the one truth that has been constant in my life:

I am not happy, and I never have been, and fear that I never will be.

After having gastric bypass surgery (which, btw, I did NOT think would fix my life), and successfully losing 150 pounds, I’ve gained back 60, which has me teetering outside of the 300 pound mark.  For those trying to do the math, my lowest weight was about 215, then 225, and now I am at 285.  And I finally had to ask myself why.  I know the answers, however.  It’s the drinking, and the overeating, and everything I do to medicate myself because the truth of my life… that I am not happy… feels as if it’s going to swallow me whole.

I’ve decided to try and work on me, on my getting fat again, and this blog is going to be a huge part of that.  I’m going to try anytime I get an emotion that makes me want to eat and zone out to come here and type about it.  Even if no one reads it, maybe that will help.  Guess I should find an application for my phone eh?  I’m going to be working against years of conditioning that makes me eat whenever I feel anything unpleasant, but I’m going to REALLY try and not do that.  Even when I do, I’m still going to be honest about what I’m feeling.  It’s the only way I’m ever going to stop living as a ghost of myself.

I feel like I’m waking up.  Dieting and better eating programs aren’t going to help me, my problem is bigger than what I’m putting in my mouth, and if I don’t get to the root cause of it, I’ll keep gaining weight and I really don’t want that.

Wish me luck?