in my head. in my heart.

I'm going home on Tuesday for Thanksgiving.
8 hour drive.
I'm really worried about seeing my family. My grandfather has dementia or Alzheimers or whatever. I don't even really know anything about it because nobody will tell me. I think my parents don't want to worry me and my sister is too busy with med school to talk much. She's the only one who's really told me anything, though. My grandmother apparently looks like a skeleton she's so thin. She's lost her appetite because she can't taste food as well as she used to. My Oma and Opa got in a car accident and my Oma's back was hurt. She's been in a lot of pain lately.
I feel so isolated from everything that's been happening to my family... and I don't like it.
So why do I want to move even farther away next year?

I feel like the more independent I become, the more I learn to take care of myself, the more I forget how to care for others. I mean, I still have a lot of compassion and love, but sometimes I just want to escape. I don't want to have to deal with everyone's problems. It's self-preservation, I guess.
But it feels cruel.

And I want to be kind.