This weekend was a weekend of rebuilding and strengthening relationships with the men in my life (and churning out files for work calls on Saturday and Sunday, but that make a much less interesting post).
CB
In 3 months I’ll have reached the 6th year of my relationship with CB, whom I met in high school. We’re both college graduates now, and still going. We’ve had big ups and downs, because of immaturity, insecurity, physical distance, and just plain ol’ growing-up on both sides. Sometimes, looking back, and looking at the seventeen-year-olds I know, I think it’s a minor miracle that we’ve made it this far when we started so young.
I’ve learned a lot about myself through the process. I’ve learned that perfection does not belong to man, nor woman, though that has been harder for me to accept. 
I’m learning how to fight fair, and how to let go of the little hurts, annoyances and misunderstandings so they don’t poison the important stuff. I have learned am still learning that love is as much a verb as it is a noun.
Dad
This weekend I also reached out to Dad, with whom I’ve had a strained relationship in high school and a distant one in college. We never really fought after I left for college, but that’s because we stopped talking about anything beyond the most basic of niceties.
Now that I’ve finally had some (8 years worth!) of distance between us, I can move beyond the hurt that I felt as a teenager, realize that all relationships have faults, and see that at the end of the day, he’s still the only father I’ve got. Daddy’s little girl? Maybe not quite, but it’s never too late to try to build something new and better.
God
God is referred to as “He” in the Bible, but I think just as He is beyond human, he is also beyond human gender categorization (and I’ve taken a class called “Divine Feminine” in college). I am still working on building a spiritual life, and cultivating a relationship with something greater than myself and my own little world. It’s a work in progress.
I write a personal journal, and I tell God that I am pro-choice and I believe in evolution, and I ask Him why can’t we stop killing in His name, and why are there wars and accidents and crimes and horrible genetic diseases. I don’t have the answers, but I pray to Him nonetheless. A little bit of faith? That must be it.
Good for you.
Hey Well Heeled!
Long time lurker, finally piping up
I really enjoyed your post today. It’s amazing how relationships change and evolve, and how sometimes we grow apart from people and then grow back together. I also like your view on the liquidity of faith… I figure that God can handle where I don’t agree with him if on the whole I live a good, loving, giving life.
Best of luck in your relationships with CB and your dad, honey!Keep writing the excellent posts you do.
This is lovely, especially the last one. I struggle with things like this too, and I think you put it beautifully. Faith is a life process and much less black and white than some would have us believe (so to speak — ha).
Strenghtning your relationship with dad also reinforces the more personal ones with CB and God all the more stronger.
They directly influence each other too! I meant to add that in my earlier comment but clicked in the “submit” button too quickly.
Good luck with your CB and your dad. Isn’t it always a process??
Reading your third one, I immediately thought of a book that I’m always reading off and on that I thought you might like. It’s called “The Good Book” by Peter J. Gomes (this was the chapel minister at my undergraduate college), and it has really helped me understand that I can still have a spiritual life that isn’t discordant with my liberal views. It’s helped me so much. Also helps you see how much people’s views on faith and the Bible are culturally constructed, and not necessarily the way things are!