I didn’t find you because I was looking. Seriously, I don’t normally rifle through that section. And yet it was like you fell into my hands and stayed there. Through it all.

From the start you protected me. From the harsh elements of the outside world. Or from the hardships that came my way throughout these past years. It was like you became an armor. Hard as a rock against the unknown, safe inside a shell. Confident to take it all on, emerging at the other end better off or at least still in one piece.

Almost as if you knew when I would need you, there by my side you would be. And even though some of the memories fade from my mind I don’t seem to worry. The experiences, the lessons, the heartache, the love, the knowledge, the sunshine its all locked away in the fabric of you.

And we have seen the world together. London and the Tower, Paris and the Louvre, Florence and the Duomo. Dancing until sunrise under the Spanish sky, falling in love on the streets of Rome, even stumbling home through the halls of German hostels. You were there; the only witness other than myself to all of it. To everything.

So they ask and they wonder while you grow faded and torn, why I won’t give up on you.

The answer is clear, so I hope I am questioned no more. My chambray shirt is the keeper of the first real chapter of my story.

Here is the cheers to chapter two and the continuation of the journey…