I didn’t mean to get distracted, but I just did.

Distractions come left, right, and center. For me, they are often due to a busy lifestyle, having kids, and social media.

The past couple of weeks I got distracted from my goal of writing weekly. Instead, I was working on preparing lessons to teach at a Christian conference we were attending as a family. Distractions don’t have to be negative, but they do often deter us from our long-term goals and from remaining consistent.

Today, instead of choosing to remain lax in my writing, I picked up my laptop, while the battery is nearly dying, to jot down some thoughts I’ve had recently. Nothing earth-shattering here...just some random thoughts.

• I can actually achieve more in a day if I get better sleep at night.
• I am regularly shocked when I look in the mirror and see I have a small streak of white hair on the side of my head, along with several wrinkles.
• I miss having ‘older’ people in my day-to-day life interactions.

I’ve been thinking about this last thought for a few weeks now and wondering how I can change this. Not just for me, but also for my children. My grandparents, who lived across the street from me growing up, were an active part of my life. We saw them almost daily when I was a kid, and I truly treasure the lessons and experiences we shared.

Now that I’m raising our kids on the other side of the globe from my own parents, I sometimes feel sad that my children will never experience that type of life. No random moments where they run across the street to garden with Grandpa, no afternoon baking sessions with Grandma. No forts on the sun porch...or makeshift doctors' offices in the basement...no decorating the house with dozens of nativity sets at Christmas.

Instead, we settle for week-long holidays together and FaceTime videos.

This will never ‘match’ the childhood I had; it couldn’t possibly even resemble it.

However, we have a family here that loves and treasures our kids in the same manner. But there’s just not quite that ‘older-generation-teaching'. It’s more aunties and uncles...and fewer elders to look up to.

How can I change this? What would it look like for my kids to grow up with the influence of people far older than me?

My inability to speak Thai or Karen fluently is greatly limiting my ability to have these relationships as well.

I want to make friends with some of the older people in my community and perhaps learn to speak more from them...I believe this could be a key to much of what I feel I’m ‘lacking,’ both for myself and for my children...