I’ve been away for 5 straight days this week. In the past when I travel for work I always feel it’s no big deal. I used to be away for 2 weeks in a month on average and I’ve never felt very very homesick.
That all changed when I started having kids. Being away from the kids make me feel really homesick and it’s not just because of the fear of missing a moment in their growing up lives. It’s because I can’t interact with them in a meaningful way.
Ok let me explain that. When I’m away from Shorty it’s fine because we still talk a lot on messaging or video calls. So while I’m physically away, I’m not emotionally away.
I can’t seem to achieve the same thing with Fighter and Penny. Technology advances has allowed us to do live video calls (something our parents never had the luxury of) but both of them never seem to want to interact with me over video for long.
So I feel homesick. I feel like I miss them and the traditional release of looking at their pictures in your wallet or now phone doesn’t have the effect it used to have anymore.
Fortunately my wife does two things that help.
The first is Dayre. She makes it a point to constantly update her Dayre especially when I’m away so I get to follow their journey throughout their day. I may miss moments but I don’t miss what really happened because the whole story of the day is told there.
The second thing is my wife’s YouTube videos. So Shorty started vlogging recently with lots of shots with the kids. The advantage with this one is that I really get to relive the moment that I would have otherwise missed.
This week when I was away, Shorty published this video. All shot and edited in a day (seriously when did my wife become such an expert).
As I sat in the hotel room one morning, dreading the start of another day away from the family, watching this video made me feel all better.
I ended up watching it twice that very same day. Reliving some of the moments over and over again. Like Penny doing a yum seng.
Sure my wife doesn’t necessarily update her vlog or Dayre just for me… but I’m happy and very appreciative of being a big beneficiary of it.
The great part is that one day when Fighter and Penny are older they can go back to watch these videos or read our Dayre to see how our lives were like with them around.
That’s the great thing about the internet these days. We are enabled to not just store photos or snapshot of memories but stories. If we keep this up we’ll have a lifetime of stories to tell our kids and grandkids one day. Never ever having to forget one.
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space