Hannah Boquet

My oldest, who are then 10 and 12, are there with their headsets on and their devices.

and we all dive in to the wonderful, magic, mysterious world of Fortnite.

Immediately, my kids are off, racking up points, opening treasure chests.

I literally don't know what they're doing because I am right where I landed, spinning in a circle, don't even know how to open a door or open a treasure chest or move on to anything.

And pretty soon, I have to let my kids know I've been shot and I'm down.

Immediately, my 12-year-old said, it's okay, hold on, Mom.

And this kid comes running towards me, building a structure out of literally nothing, and holding his hand over me to heal me.

That was kinda cool, I didn't know you could heal people.

My middle son, if you have a middle son, you can probably relate with this, he comes crashing a semi-truck through the wall his brother just made, hops out in a full body banana costume, and lays his hand over me to heal me.

After the exasperated sigh of why do I have to,

That was the point where I could have quit, where I could have said, I'm terrible at video games, this is not for me.

But I didn't quit.

I didn't quit because we were laughing so hard.

I was laughing at the absolute absurdity of this entire situation.

And I suspect they might have been laughing at how completely terrible I was at video games.

But at that point, they decided that they would stick closer to me and teach me how to play this game.

But I didn't just learn about the game.

I learned about them.

I learned about the connections that they make together and the way they communicate while they're playing these games.

And maybe, the most importantly, I learned this is the connection that I've been craving as well.