tick tock

Over the last few years, as I've gotten older, and have realized that she is actually wiser than I am, Mom and I have become much, much closer. We talk on the phone two or three times a week. She even asked me for advice when she started dating again, and she's got an encyclopedia of knowledge that I can tap into when it comes to dealing with fidgety felines. I may know more about world politics, but she knows more about life.

Unfortunately, most of our conversations lately have been about money as well as long discussions about where is the best place for me to be right now. I want to stay in Stockholm, but sometimes I wonder if I haven't "done my time" here, so to speak. I could leave within a few months with the knowledge that there were no loose ends, that I had done what I came here to do (don't ask me what I came here to do; I'm referring more of a feeling of being finished, which is rather difficult to articulate).

My family has been wonderful since my car accident in August, as I have been trying to get back on my feet, literally, the last few months. My employment situation is tenuous at the moment, although I'm working on correcting the situation. The current research project is finished this month, and while there are several leads I'm pursuing, I'm going to be anxious until I get something more conrete nailed down.

My mom asked me tonight to do two things for her: call or write to my grandparents (morföräldrar) once a week, and do the same thing for my father. "If not for yourself or for them, than for me."

Damn, she knows where it hurts. Guess that's where I learned it.

I know I should do a better job of keeping in touch with Grandma and Grandad. That request, I guess I can fulfill. But the request to make contact with my father, that one's a little trickier. My parents were divorced when I was 16. We never have had the best relationship, and suffice it to say that while I can intellectually understand why he is way he is (and was the way he was when I was growing up), that doesn't make it any easier on an emotional level. My father is not able to live by himself anymore, and while medication keeps him "stable," I don't think there is much of a chance for us to renew our relationship. I honestly prefer not to think about it at all, rather than having anything to do with him. Maybe that's part of the reason I moved to the other side of the world. I don't know.

Grandma and Grandad are both 92, and just moved into a retirement home last summer. Mom has been taking care of them for the last five years or so, and it's been taking it's toll on her. She is stuck in a job that is going nowhere, just trying to hold out to retirement. Her boyfriend (her so-called "gentleman friend") is a fourteen hour drive away, and her only child is on the other side of the world. Her life, as in the life she lives for herself, is essentially on hold. She's waiting for G&G to get really sick, waiting for retirement, waiting for Something to Happen.

Don't get me wrong. In some ways, the situation is self-styled. When it comes right down to it, she could say no. Stand up for herself. Take back her life. But I understand why she doesn't. It's hard to change your own situation when there are other people depending on you. Other People that You Love. Other People that Would Have a Hard Time Understanding Why Things Suddenly Changed.

Sometimes it's easier to wait. But time can run out while you are waiting for Something to Happen.

I guess I can do these two things she has asked me to do. If not for myself, for her.