Missing In Action In Austria
I left Canada at the beginning of May 2019 and I went missing in action in Austria for ten weeks. I had plans to review the course that I had taken, read books for work, draw every day, write every day, eat well, lose weight, write tons of articles, spend time with friends, while being back home, helping my aging parents.
You probably think it's impossible to do all of it, every single day. It was. Yet every vacation I have the same intentions and expectations for my time. A large amount of unstructured time always begs me to quickly fill it with work. It feels impossible not to fill those void spaces with plans.
I was brought up in a very productive, industrious family with mostly entrepreneurs and workaholics. Part of me wants to be like everyone else in my family and work, work, work, even during a vacation. I felt pressure to justify spending so much time with my parents.
Things went right in the first two weeks. I spent a few days with my younger son in Vienna. We had no plans. And it was wonderful. We slept as long as we wanted. We ate when we were hungry. We walked the city streets, watched people. I loved it. We talked about everything and nothing. It was simple, yet it filled my heart and soul to the brim.
I had such ambitious plans for the rest of my stay, after my son left. Luckily those plans didn't come to fruition. I wasn't motivated to write, study and work every day, as my busy brain had planned. I slept in and read books I enjoyed. I swam in ice cold mountain rivers and lakes. I hiked through a canyon with my sisters. I ate an abundance of wild strawberries.
I felt guilty looking at my books and my laptop sitting lonely on my desk, waiting for me to work, yet I closed the door behind me and did what I really wanted and needed to do. I walked often with my mom. I watched TV with my dad. We played cards. I did seemingly unimportant, insignificant things.
Yet those things helped me to relax and to realize how stressed and worried I had been. It helped me to make peace with my parents' age and that things will change. But for now we're alive and we will do and say maybe unimportant things. Nothing spectacular, but real, everyday life together. That's more than I could have planned for.
https://karingoldgruber.com/2019/07/30/i-went-mia-missing-in-austria-for-ten-weeks/
