I think this is a love letter.

Sigh…

Someday you’ll understand how much your mama hates being cliche… How many mamas have written these cheesy letters? But, then, that’s love, I guess. It changes everything. I should know.

I’m sitting in Starbucks. I’ve slipped away to work, to write articles about adwords… a profile of a fabulous woman entrepreneur… and a short story about a magic iPhone… All things I’ve said I’ll do. I tend to over-commit.

And, yet.

I’m here thinking of you. Thoughts of the way you smile or your sweet gurgle sounds are bouncing around my head, climbing stair steps on the words of the conversation at the next table.

I can’t remember when I’ve been this consumed by someone.

Wait, yes, of course I can. Your dad.

Whatever that something is that he has… it’s hereditary.

You both take my breath away.

As the days turn into weeks and now months, I find myself rehearsing the memories I want never to forget. I turn them over and over in my mind, cataloging them, filing them into drawers marked “keep.”

This love story — yours and mine — it moves so fast.

Again, like your dad. It was nearly nine years ago, though it seems just the other day, that he told me he could see you in my eyes. I closed them quickly for fear this boy I barely knew would see me, too.

He did, and he never lost sight of you, either.

You have been a part of our love story for a better part of a decade. Someday maybe, you’ll realize how unique that is, how precious and rare. Someday, you’ll see that perhaps there was never a child more desired on this whole Earth than you.

I hope in the way that I can so clearly remember those moments before you joined us, I will also freeze-frame the memories that we’re making.

I want to remember the first time you met my eyes with recognition and the way it feels to lift you to my shoulder and feel your warm cheek against mine. I want to keep forever the way you looked the first time I saw you watching the passing scenery as we drove. I have no idea what you saw that day, but I saw the whole world.

Sometimes, I lay next to you and watch you sleep, and you turn toward me, wiggling your little body closer even with eyes closed. Oh, how I hope you always feel like you can turn to me. And, even when I’m sitting in the dark, wishing with all my heart for sleep, I want to keep that moment, too… Someday, it will be the last long night, and I won’t even know until it’s gone.

For nine whole months, I was afraid to love you. You came streaking through a long, dark night to change my mind, a tiny supernova here to rescue a woman who didn’t even know she needed saving. You brought me hope. You made me brave again.

My sweet boy, you are worth every cringe I might make for writing a love letter. I love you with all the syrupy sweetness of a fairy tale.

You’ve completely shattered me. I will never, ever be the same.

I can’t tell you how grateful I am for that.