I’ll love you forever, this I promise. I’ll be the girl that’s always by your side, who will love you on all your days, not just the good ones. I’ll be the girl that stays with you through trials and triumphs, through pain and celebration, through strength and doubt, through weeks and months and years and years and years.

I’ll grow old with you.
But I’ll never grow up.

I can promise you that decades from now, I’ll still wear lime green fuzzy slippers and cuddle a stuffed animal when I’m scared. I know I’ll still be terrified of thunder and run barefoot through sprinklers. I’ll still want to color pictures and draw faces on pebbles and make angels in the snow.

I promise you that I’ll still put mini-marshmallows in my hot chocolate, that I’ll wear my hair in pigtail braids, that I’ll paint my nails bright colors and not care what anyone thinks. I’ll still get giddy when I hear the ice cream truck. I’ll still splash you when we’re in the ocean. I’ll still want to blow bubbles and draw with chalk and get in water balloon fights.

Sure, I’ll be responsible and mature. I’ll pay the bills and file my taxes and make insurance claims and pay off my car and go to work every day. I’ll cook meals and do my laundry and clean my room and conserve water and save my money. I’ll carry intelligent conversations, I’ll make executive decisions, and I’ll wear my fancy dresses and heels and go out for a night on the town.

But you better believe that I’ll doodle on the envelopes of those bills and binge-watch cartoons after a day of adult-talking and dance around the kitchen and smear cake batter on your nose and take you home after a night of drinks and throw pillows at your head.

I’ll grow old with you; I’d love to.
But I won’t grow up.

No matter what happens, I promise to always be silly, to always make you laugh, to always embrace that little-kid part of me that keeps us both young.

I promise to always love you with that childish sort of abandon, the kind of love that is so pure, no matter what obstacles come our way.

And I promise I’ll always find ways to have youthful moments, to play childhood games, to do kid things that aren’t always socially acceptable, but who cares? The truth is, this life is too short to always be prim and proper, to walk a line, to follow the rules of how an adult is supposed to behave.

No, I won’t embarrass you. No, I won’t act like a fool when I need to be dignified. And no, I’m not immature. I just love to celebrate being young and all the simple things that makes us happy.

And just because we’re getting older, doesn’t mean we can’t have any fun.