Missed

I’ve been doing a bit of traveling lately. Evangelizing the religion of newspaper parody to the unwashed masses.

Luckily they are usually 2-3 day trips, unlike my old job where I’d be gone for 3 weeks at a time. I much prefer a quick trip to Orlando than a massive jaunt to New Zealand. No. Seriously. I’m not kidding.

The strange thing is I miss the boys and Diana more on these little trips. It kills me to be away from them.  I spend an inordinate amount of time weepily flipping through my phone’s photo gallery when I should be concentrating on whatever it is I do.

And the feeling is thankfully mutual. For years, when I would leave for a trip the boys could hardly be bothered to look up from their iPads to say goodbye.

But now, they cry real tears when I leave. And I love it. What kind of narcissist finds joy from that? This kind right here.  I no longer have to rely on my dog having anxiety-ridden diarrhea to give me joy.

Being in the same hemisphere does help. I am able to have strange, disjointed conversations with Elijah and Luca. The concept of a live message over the phone is so foreign to Luca that me spends most of the time simply starting into the phone saying, “Dad? DAD?”

Eli send me this exact text message this morning: “Vctghtnvctdgchfhgh cyyccyyvyfgfyyfycgguuuhv (66;88;)&(9;9(;;8))! Love eli.”

I feel the exact same way.