Full sail ahead.

I'm not in a relationship, I'm in a relation ship.

Dating is like a sailboat. Your ultimate destination is marriage, and if you decide you're not meant to be together, you simply jump ship. Otherwise, you sail ahead - sometimes your sails are full of wind, and sometimes you have little, or you're stuck in the doldrums. Sometimes you hit rough waters, or even stormy weather. Sometimes your ship gets sunk...and when (if?) you finally reach the harbors of marriage, there are still more adventures, happy times, and hardships beyond.

I'd like to say right now my relationship has full sails ahead. We're in what some people call a "honeymoon phase"...for whatever reason I dislike the term but can't think of a better. We get along so well, and we're happy together. But I refuse to be naive - there will be hard times. But that's good. If we can get through them together, then we'll have a deeper relationship afterward, a deeper bond, and a deeper understanding of one another.

I'm beginning to get used to not being single. For a while, this kind of sharing of life with my girlfriend was such a new adventure, something foreign. Now I feel like I'm getting settled. And I like it! I feel comfortable...like I am settling into my well-worn captain's chair. In my last relationship, which was my first "real" relationship, I suppose, the idea of running my life in line with someone else's was scary to me. I think there were two reasons for this: One, I was not ready for a relationship. Two, I was in a relationship with someone I was just simply not meant to be with. I had good intentions and I thought I discerned well, but I was wrong. God was not calling me to that...but He brought good out of it, in the form of some valuable lessons.

But this is different.

My girlfriend and I can talk forever. I can name a couple times where we lost track of time and were talking for hours and hours into the early morning. The only other person I can do this with is my best friend...but HE has known me since I was six. How remarkable.

The way I feel around my girlfriend, I feel like I can always be myself. It seems like I automatically show certain sides of myself around certain people, which I believe is natural for anyone to do, but with her I only feel like me. I am just me, without shame. She loves who I am.

I love her too.

There was a dream that I dreamed, and that dream was for safe passage for all our ships.