I have known you since before I knew anything else. The second I became me, you became mine. You have grown with me, for better or for worse, but that doesn’t mean I have always realized it. Actually, I’ve treated you terribly. I’ve let others treat you the same. As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to realize my long train of abuses on your behalf. And I’m going to start doing right by you.

So, thank you. Thank you for carrying me through my worst and best times. Thank you for sensing the energies around me, especially the bad ones where you send that panging through my belly as a warning sign. Thank you for battling illness after illness...if you hadn’t, we wouldn’t be here today. Thank you for enduring all that junk food, caffeine, and God-knows-what-else I have put in you over the years. Thank you for doing my dancing, no matter how terrible it may look to everyone else. And, most importantly, thank you for being strong, imperfect, and beautiful. I am so incredibly grateful to you.

However, because you are my body, I’m biased when I say you are the most beautiful thing I own. We both know that there have been people who haven’t agreed with me, (hell, even I haven’t agreed all the time) but there are plenty more who do. You are beautiful because you are mine, and nothing else in the world can compare to you. No thing looks like you, and no thing ever will. The things we have seen and done throughout our time together are completely unique to us, and they have shaped us into the incredible “we” standing here today. It’s undoubtedly been an evolutionary process, but as time has gone on you have become more and more beautiful, strong, and special. And that’s what makes you so flawless.

Even though you are done growing upward, you are what will help me continue to grow as a person. The road ahead may get strenuous, but I will do everything I can to make sure you stay well. You have already endured so much pain and detriment, I don’t want to see any more harm come your way. Those days are gone. The same goes for the pain others have caused; never again will I let another human being hurt you or say anything negative about you. There will probably be times when we fall into the arms of someone who does not wish to hold us, and regardless of whether or not we collapse into arms who intend to keep us forever someday, we will always be together. You were the first thing I knew, and you will also be the last.

I find peace in knowing all this. Why? Because in you, my body, I have my forever. You are the only vessel I will ever know, and I intend to keep and preserve you as they do with battleships or fancy cars. In being my vessel, I have to be grateful to you. But, in all honesty, each day this gratitude grows along with me. Perhaps getting older means you realize the importance of your body, but it doesn’t matter. I love you beyond words, and I thank you for keeping me well.