So Far Away From Me
I don't think I've ever felt truly homesick for Austria since I moved to the UK. I've certainly missed certain people and things, but that was more a case of wishing that I had the convenience of being near/having access to them rather than truly wishing that I was somewhere else. I suppose that, strictly speaking, what I feel right now is the same sort of thing, but it's so much stronger than anything else that has come before that it does kind of feel like homesickness.
I worry about my Mum.
She's still healthy for her age, but it seems to me that in the past year in particular, she's become a lot more fragile and forgetful. I don't remember if I ever mentioned it on here, but last winter she nearly burnt down the flat when she lit the candles on her advent wreath and then left the house without remembering to blow them out again. Fortunately "only" the wreath was burning by the time she came back and the fire hadn't spread yet, but it was still a scary thing to hear. One time she accidentally threw her house keys into the communal rubbish bin and had to beg a neighbour to fish them back out for her. In summer, she was cycling and stopped at a traffic light, and while she was just standing there waiting for it to change to green again, she randomly fell over. Fortunately she wasn't hurt that time. The other week though, she fell over in the shower and bruised her arm so badly that she had to go to the hospital and they put a cast on it.
I don't want to go back to living in the same flat as her, but it really worries me that I'm so far away and completely unable to help when something like that happens. I hope that she still has many healthy and happy years ahead of her - knock on wood - but I don't really know anymore. It would help if I knew that there were other people to look after her, but there aren't, not really. My brother does help her with certain household-related issues occasionally when she asks nicely, but overall he's too wrapped up in his own business to care, and sometimes he even makes things worse. The other day my Mum called me up in tears after my brother had started screaming at her over her not understanding the instructions for her new cable TV box or something... she was sobbing and going on about how she doesn't even know why she's still here anymore; it was heart-breaking. After about an hour of talking to me on the phone she felt better again, but it was hard to be unable to do anything else.
I've started wondering whether there will come a time when I'll want to go back to Austria at least temporarily, just because I can't stand the thought of her loneliness and helplessness anymore... but I don't know what else I would do there and how I would live. I'm just a little scared.
I worry about my Mum.
She's still healthy for her age, but it seems to me that in the past year in particular, she's become a lot more fragile and forgetful. I don't remember if I ever mentioned it on here, but last winter she nearly burnt down the flat when she lit the candles on her advent wreath and then left the house without remembering to blow them out again. Fortunately "only" the wreath was burning by the time she came back and the fire hadn't spread yet, but it was still a scary thing to hear. One time she accidentally threw her house keys into the communal rubbish bin and had to beg a neighbour to fish them back out for her. In summer, she was cycling and stopped at a traffic light, and while she was just standing there waiting for it to change to green again, she randomly fell over. Fortunately she wasn't hurt that time. The other week though, she fell over in the shower and bruised her arm so badly that she had to go to the hospital and they put a cast on it.
I don't want to go back to living in the same flat as her, but it really worries me that I'm so far away and completely unable to help when something like that happens. I hope that she still has many healthy and happy years ahead of her - knock on wood - but I don't really know anymore. It would help if I knew that there were other people to look after her, but there aren't, not really. My brother does help her with certain household-related issues occasionally when she asks nicely, but overall he's too wrapped up in his own business to care, and sometimes he even makes things worse. The other day my Mum called me up in tears after my brother had started screaming at her over her not understanding the instructions for her new cable TV box or something... she was sobbing and going on about how she doesn't even know why she's still here anymore; it was heart-breaking. After about an hour of talking to me on the phone she felt better again, but it was hard to be unable to do anything else.
I've started wondering whether there will come a time when I'll want to go back to Austria at least temporarily, just because I can't stand the thought of her loneliness and helplessness anymore... but I don't know what else I would do there and how I would live. I'm just a little scared.