by Jerica Collins

Created on: September 25, 2008   Last Updated: January 31, 2009

Love and marriage doesn't care how old or young you are. Love is what binds a married couple to stay together through thick and thin, "for better or worse, for richer or poorer, till death due us part". I think that sometimes young people have trouble committing to one person because marriage is or at least should be a permanent thing and a lot of young people want to feel free and uncommitted to anything. Yet for me marriage is freedom, being with the one I love more than anything, not having to search anymore, having someone always there to comfort me better than any friend can, because he is my best friend, my lover, my one and only.

I fell in love at 19 and became pregnant, married then had our child at 20 and I will never believe I was too young. I never had another boyfriend and so had never been with another man, but the man who became my husband is exactly who I wanted and needed. He was only 21 when we married, so yes we were both young when married, but I couldn't imagine having waited any longer. Some probably believe I should have dated more, that I gave myself to him too soon after we began dating, that I got pregnant too quickly (and of course was terrible for it being before marriage), and some probably figured we married only because we were having a child together, but I don't tend to care what they think.

To me my life is wonderful. We may have our problems with money and such, and maybe at the time I became pregnant I wasn't yet ready to be a mother, but I prepared myself and my husband only helped me even more so. I never dreamed that I'd marry this young and especially never dreamed I'd already have a child, but I wouldn't change a thing. Some people my age just are not ready to give up the freedom of going out whenever they want and meeting strangers they decide to hook up with. I think getting married at a young age can only be handled by those that are truely ready, who don't seek many "partners", and who love the thought of being able to spend their entire lives with one person.

From the time I started thinking about dating I was so picky about men. I never dated anyone because those who wanted to date me didn't seem right and those I wanted to date I was too shy to talk to. No one seemed right as I was looking for Mr.Right from the very start. Not until I finished college and came back to my home town did I find my Mr.Right, though to most it seems I found him quickly but to me it took so long. In many ways I thought myself older mentally because of my early search for Mr. Right and my refusal to give myself to just anyone, yet sometimes I feel so young because I never did so many things other people my age were doing. My Mr.Right happened to be someone I went to highschool with who I never had thought of as more than a friend, but sometimes those are the best ones.

Marriage needs to be about two people truely in love that want to be together forever, but so many people don't live the vows they say, too many don't know real love. Marriage is about love and love is about sticking together no matter what problems arise and having that intimacy that is indescribable. The real true love that marriage requires can not be explained shortly and the definition can only be known to those who have it. Marriage is a wonderful, sometimes difficult, but amazing thing that I wish everyone was able to enjoy. It is full of future hopes and dreams, not an end at all as some people think, but a binding of two in love that create numerous possiblities.

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