Marry.

When I was younger, as many other young women do, I thought marraige meant happily ever after. We find our soul mate, we live in a quaint little neighborhood, raise our perfect children, and play fetch with our black lab. We can thank our society for that idea.

Then, I grew up.

Don't get me wrong, I am indeed happily married, I do have perfect children and the requisite black lab. But, as many people discover, it's not all butterflies and rainbows and happy happy happy.

It's hard. Two people, move all of their "baggage" into one household, two planets colliding to form a whole new universe in itself. Things are bound to get messy.

But, at the end of the day, when the dog has literally eaten your left shoe, and your perfect child has a meltdown in the electronics department of Target, and dinner, because you are so busy taking care of everyone else, has consisted of stale pretzels, lemonade, and cheese that you aren't quite sure is supposed to be that color, you are indeed, thankful, for that warm body that is snuggled up to you every night. Even if he snores like mad. Even with the 5 year old squeezed in between. Even if the dog takes up more room than the five year old and your elbow hasn't seen the mattress any time lately. There's still plenty to be said for marraige.