Marrying you just isn’t the top of my liberty; it’s the start of it.
You’re the person I need to dive headfirst into life with. When I’m going out on the weekends, it’s you I need shutting down the club with me. When I plan an adventure it’s you I need holding the map. When I speculate concerning the future, I need to see you in every outlandish fantasy I plan for myself. You’re the person I need to rant excitedly to over completely satisfied hour drinks. You’re the person I need to bounce across the house with in my underwear with. You’re the one that makes the entire world feel wide-open to me and I need to make the most of that. I need to plunge into the long run with you – since it looks larger and brighter by your side than I ever could have imagined.
I don’t wish to calm down with you. I need to take off with you – to far-away countries, foreign landscapes, gems and corners of the world that might only have looked half as amazing without you by my side. When I strap on a backpack and head to the airport, I need you to be boarding that plane with me. You’re the person I need to wander off with, arrange camp with, stumble through dark streets with at 5a.m. with after a protracted, rambunctious night in a city that we will’t pronounce the name of. When I get home and have tale after ridiculous tale to recite to my friends, you’re the one I need there to back up my claims. You’re the person I need to return home to and the person I need to flee with. I need you on every adventure I take for the remainder of my life. I need to do all the things on earth with you.
I don’t wish to be the person you mostly agree with. I need to be the person you challenge – to vary, to grow, to expand in ways in which wouldn’t have ever occurred to me before I met you. I need heated debates at 3am. I need stark disagreements once I’m acting out of line. I need passionate arguments concerning the way we’re living because your fire fuels mine and I never want that spark to die out. I need to be someone you aren’t afraid to challenge because sometimes I want that extra push. And you possibly can bet your ass that I’ll push you right back.
I don’t wish to let myself go now that I even have you – I need to construct myself up alongside you. Something about you inspires me to be larger, brighter, bolder than I ever knew that I could change into. And I hope that I encourage you, too. That together we will encourage each other to grow into the fullest, strongest, fiercest versions of one another. That ten years from now we will probably be prouder than ever to be standing beside each other and that twenty years later we’ll be even prouder still. I hope you’re not expecting to grow stagnant in love because something about you makes me feel like my best self on steroids and I don’t plan to let that feeling die.
If there’s anything I’m not anxious about, it’s us falling apart. The truth is I never fell in love with you anyway; I walked into love – surely, deliberately and and not using a backwards glance. I selected you from the primary day I met you and baby I promise to maintain selecting you. Through every fight, I’ll select you. Through every temptation, I’ll select you. Through every twist and bump within the road that threatens to tear us apart I’ll select you with the ferocious certainty I’ve felt because the first time I ever laid eyes on you. I’m not anxious about falling out of affection with you baby, because I never fell in. Loving you was a waking, conscious selection and it’s one which I’m going to maintain making until the day my heart stops beating.
Now let’s stop with these frivolous vows – there’s a celebration to have! We have gifts to tear open and champagne to chug and a whirlwind honeymoon to go embark on. This whole marriage thing is old and drained but we most actually are usually not. After all, you’re only young and wild once. And baby, our wildest days are only starting.
