1. In just a few short months, my twin boys will celebrate their tenth birthday. Ten! Two boys who are ten. Seems like just yesterday they were born, weighing a collective 10 pounds. 2. I feel like I should mark this milestone, salute all that we’ve accomplished in this first ten years, to prepare me for the next ten. 3. Because in the next ten, you will fly from my nest, out into the world and I will have to let you go. I want to be ready to let you go. 4. I remember releasing you into the wilds of kindergarten and saying “Be kind, make smart choices.” If nothing else, that’s the armor I could give you against the great, wide world of elementary school. 5. We still say it to each other every day. 6. Be kind and make smart choices because the world can be mean and dumb. But we, we are ready, come what may. 7. A few more years on and I can’t pick you up anymore but you both still ask me to tuck you in at bedtime. 9. I say yes. Always yes because you may not ask me tomorrow. 10. We used to talk about trains and cars and bugs. Now we talk about video games and baseball and the barest wisps of armpit hair. 11. It’s really sweatshirt fuzz but I indulge you. 12. You still say “I love you” even after you’ve just finished arguing over something none of us can remember the next day. 13. You still kiss me on the cheek at least once a week, and you make me laugh every day. Every. Single. Day. 14. And I’m so grateful for it because it’s through your eyes, your wit, your lens, that I have more patience for the world. I can’t wait to see what you do in it when I let you go.
Inspired by Sherman Alexie’s Sonnet, with bird and by my Dark Angel friends who taught me the power of a sonnet to practice my writing.
