Amanda Mendoza

Staff Writer

From laughing and crying to fighting and making up: it’s the life of being in a relationship. Whether married, engaged, committed or dating, all relationships go through similar trials.

Whoever said that each of these stages is set for certain ages?

Age should not determine a commitment. Ma­turity, strength and love in a relationship are what determine a commitment.

I believe age cannot measure any of that.

No one can tell anyone that he or she is too young to be committed to one person. Each in­dividual can decide that on his or her own. If a couple decides they are ready to be serious, there are ways to show commitment without having the full-on engagement. Promise rings are per­fect for high school students who want to show this kind of commitment.

No one knows for sure what the future will hold, but teenagers can always try their hardest to stay together through whatever struggles may come ahead.

I have been with my boyfriend since 2006, and after two years of our relationship, he bought me a promise ring.

We have gone through countless obstacles that forced our relationship to grow.

With the death of my dad and my brothers off at college, my boyfriend had to take on the role of “the man of the house.”

He does everything in my house, from snow­plowing the driveway to helping figure out fi­nancial problems and even sleeping at my house everyday after helping for long, countless hours in order to make my mom’s life and my life easier.

Without him around, my mom and I wouldn’t be able to get through these tough times.

My boyfriend and I think it too extreme for us to get engaged in high school or get married right away, but we talk about plans concerning the fu­ture all the time.

We have decided what we wanted to do to­gether in our lives. Even though we know there is nothing promised to us in the future, we prom­ise each other to try our very best to fulfill our dreams together.

We aren’t the only couple that has been togeth­er for a while. Many upperclassmen can point out the couples in our school that have been together since freshman year or the couples that just seem like they’ve been together “forever.” Those are the couples that a lot of people say, “they’re going to get married” about.

It’s not uncommon to stay faithful to one per­son your whole high school life, and many have proved that it’s not impossible to stay faithful to one person for the rest of your life.

MTV’s series, “Engaged and Underage” is the perfect example of young couples, including teens in high school, making commitments to each other and overcoming hardships.

Many couples are able to look past the strug­gles, trust issues and pain that came their way to keep their promise.

In one extreme episode, 18-year-old Maribel ran away with Julio, who is also 18 years old, to live in New York and finish her senior year there. Just a few weeks after her graduation, the couple got married and said they “didn’t regret anything.”

If real people in that show got engaged in high school and married successfully shortly after graduation can make it, then it’s definitely pos­sible for teens in high school to make a com­mitment with a promise ring to one person and overcome everything in order to have a possible future together.

Teenagers that have a strong enough bond and mature enough relationship should never feel like they can’t be committed simply because of age.

We are never too young to start thinking about the future.

We may never be able to see the future, but we can always prepare for it, no matter what age.