Dear Lord of the Rings...

Thank you for being a big part of my childhood...

Thank you for inspiring three live action films that can, to this day, give me chills and make me cry like a little baby...

Thank you for your diverse fanbase, made up of everything from the 12-year-old Mary-Sue writer to the 40+ Quenya & Sindarin scholar...

Thank you for the years of laughter and tears...

Thank you for the late-night movie marathons with friends & family...

Thank you for the 'father-daughter' nights out at the cinema with my Dad...

Thank you for the times my mother read The Hobbit to me when I was a kid...

Thank you for being the story to bring fantasy back and make it popular, thus inspiring many other authors and filmmakers to try their hand at it...

Thank you for getting me into poetry with your unfinished 'Fall of Gil-Galad'...

Thank you for three awkwardly-animated-but-still-utterly-charming films, four radio adaptations, and a stage musical that each give a different view and flavor to your world...

Thank you for interesting me in the movie making process...

Thank you for teaching me that a book adaptation doesn't have to be exact to be good...

Thank you for showing me that even epic, high fantasy doesn't have to take itself too seriously to be good...

Thank you for influencing the person I am today...

Thank you for being my friend for many years...