What Should Have Been...

What should have been a great time out with family devolved when we sat in the restaurant waiting for our meal. Let’s back track a bit okay?

Our Sunday plans included visiting an escape room in Delaware with family. It’s something my nephew’s wife suggested and both of us thought it was a great idea. She booked the In a Galaxy Far Away” room at Great Escape Delaware for our group of seven. Star Wars theme? Yeah J and I were excited. We found the place easily enough even after my poor husband took the wrong exit. Luckily I lived in Delaware for 10 years and that makes me proficient in getting from A to B without waiting for navigation to figure what’s going on.

We got the rundown on the room, got locked inside and watched the timer start ticking away. Sixty minutes goes by crazy fast when you’re trying to solve puzzles and find clues. I don’t want to give too much information about the room because spoilers aren’t fun. With our seven brains working frantically we managed to escape with 8 minutes 43 seconds left on the clock!

Team Skittlez killed it even if the room tried to kill us with heat.

Seriously though, it was way too warm in that room with seven people scrambling around to figure things out. But both J & I enjoyed the escape room adventure quite a bit and we’re thinking of returning in the next month or so.

We all agreed to head to The Outback for dinner and that’s when things took a turn. Mind you, J and I stuck it out, ate our meal and put on the social face. What we didn’t know was that we were both feeling knocked back by a few things our family members said at the table.

We had driven over by ourselves and apparently after crossing the bridge our family said, “Quick, let’s leave the fatties behind.” and “Oh they’ve probably already stopped at a donut shop.” Neither J or I claim to be anything but what we are. We are overweight and for the past few months have been slowly working to change our food life. Anyone that has dealt with obesity understands the struggle. It’s rare to find someone who just woke up one morning as was completely dedicated to their weight loss without facing struggles.

But our weight goals and struggles to make them happen aren’t the point here. What is the point is the idea that suddenly family and friends can start taking pot shots at us, making fun of us and saying hurtful things to us in order to amuse themselves. What makes it worse is that they said these things in their car where we couldn’t hear but made a point of telling us they did it once we were at dinner. Kinda’ makes you wonder about the way they talk about us when we’re not around.

Being hurtful is unacceptable and if we weren’t both so taken aback by what they said we’d have stood up and left the restaurant. But we didn’t. Instead we stuck it out, made small talk and even invited them over next weekend for a family game night.

That was my doing.

I’m non-confrontational and don’t like to cause rifts. My five decades of experience have taught me to just go on and ignore the behavior to keep the peace. But I’m tired of keeping the peace. When is it time for people to learn to shut theirs mouths if they don’t have anything nice to say? I’d have never said anything like that to any of my relatives. I would never have subjected them to something like that in front of people in a public venue. But somewhere along the way we became targets and the skinny people feel as if it’s fine to take aim.

They’ll have to continue to make jokes and say unkind things behind our backs because we’re done. Just because they’re family doesn’t mean we have to allow them into our lives.

I’ve got five decades of

• not being pretty enough

• not being considered a “real” sibling because I was adopted

• not smart enough

• not tall enough

• not cool enough

Neither J nor I are going to let this one slip by. We’re not laughing it off and continuing to invite people into our home for game nights, holiday meals, BBQs and swim parties. You don’t get to say hurtful things to us or make jokes about us to make yourself feel good. You’re not funny. It’s not cute and Vogue isn’t standing in the wings to ask you to grace their magazine cover.

Bitter? A bit, but I expect to be treated better by people I love.

I’ve paid my dues and earned the respect.

But sadly, I don’t think they’ll get it. Because we’ll be viewed as “overly sensitive” or “whiny snowflakes”. I’ll miss them in my life and maybe one day they will “get it’. But I’m not holding my breath and we’ll continue to live our lives happily.