Courtney Dercqu promises her partner to love him the same way she did when they first met and fell head over heels for each other.
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I once read somewhere that the feeling of being in love only lasts a year. Reporter Rebecca Camber discussed a study led by Dr. Enzo Emanuele in 2005 for the Daily Mail that showed increasingly alarming rates of Nerve Growth Factor in participants who had just fallen in love compared to those who had been in relationships for a year or longer or who had been single throughout this experiment. For those who don’t study brain chemistry, Nerve Growth Factor causes that feeling of excitement in new relationships, the nervousness, the goosebumps, the sweaty-palmed passion. The study concludes by stating that these levels had dropped for couples once they hit their one year mark in the relationship, otherwise known as the time when some may say real life sets in. In other words, the honeymoon is over.
Will my heart one day not leap at the very thought of you, at the mere mention of your name?
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I read this article; mulled it over in my mind and wondered if that could possibly be true. Are these butterflies that swirl around inside my belly only temporary? Is the nervousness I still feel when you lean in to kiss me, quietly at first, and then rapidly, just a fleeting moment in an otherwise calming existence? Will my heart one day not leap at the very thought of you, at the mere mention of your name? I thought of all of this, mulled it over in my mind that one day all of these feelings that I’m experiencing, all of the worry over the mundane, yet completely significant moments, the passion that riddles my veins—if it all must eventually fade away, I want to promise you this:
I promise to look at you every day with the same kind of awe I did the first moment I met you.
I promise to never lose sight of the way my lips curl over when I wake up beside you in the early mornings, when the sunlight is beaming in brightly through the curtains and I roll over, and get to see that you’re sound asleep next to me.
I promise to always hold your hand every opportunity I get.
I promise to never be embarrassed of you and to always laugh at all the corny jokes you say.
I promise to help you wash the dishes after every meal.
I promise to still have you be the last face I see before I fall asleep, especially on the nights we’re not together.
I promise to continue to love you on the nights when it may be easier to not.
I promise to always root for you, to always stand in your corner and support every decision that you make.
I promise to encourage you in your dreams and goals, and I promise to continue to remind you that you can achieve any of them.
I promise to make you coffee in the morning, and I promise to try not to do everything myself.
I promise to fight for you, defend you, even on the times when you become too harsh on yourself.
I promise to wake up every morning feeling grateful for you, for your existence into my life that came unexpectedly, but that I welcomed.
If feeling in love with you only lasts a year, before what couples much older than us say, real life sets in, I promise to act foolish with you for as long as I possibly can.
I promise to stay up late binge watching Netflix and making ice cream sundaes and sitting out on the porch Sunday mornings drinking thirteen cups of coffee.
I promise to sometimes act ridiculous, and be surprised that you’re not fazed by the stupid, silly little things I do.
I promise to make goals with you, to write down everything we want on lists that gives us hope that one day those words will become more than wishes.
I promise to learn how to grow with you, to encompass the knowledge that with your love, my dreams know no bounds.
I promise you, that if feeling in love only lasts a year, that I will fight with whatever power I have to ensure that it not only lasts a year, but a lifetime.
Originally published on RealTalk.
Photo—Leo Hidalgo/Flickr