Time bubbles

The intimate, sexual experiences I’ve recently had with my two genderqueer/non-binary/trans friends have brought me some gender affirmation that I hardly thought possible, and have thus opened up the door to the opportunity for deeper healing and broader exploration.

However, I need to remind myself that these experiences are like “time bubbles”, due to pop, confined in space & time, and as such something I need to not get attached to. 

They belong to special, magical circumstances that I had over the past month or so but which will not continue — “zeitlich begrenzt”, as one of my two friends, with whom I communicate in their native German, put it. Limited for logistical/geographical reasons. 

With both of these friends there had already been some deep connections last year. And with both of them the recent physical & sexual intimacy was quite a surprise.

With one of these two friends I had had sexual & romantic intimacy last year already: it didn’t work out then, and we were both heart-broken. We were fortunately able to maintain our (platonic) friendship and, unexpectedly to us both, we rediscovered physical intimacy again while I was visiting in California. This time around, though, having learned the lesson, we were explicit in our intentions of not expecting a ”normal relationship”, knowing clearly beforehand that I’m polyamorous and committed to trying to stay in Colorado, at least for a while, whereas they will at some point seek out coparenting and most likely stay in California (or move to Asia or South America). So that’s a time bubble right there, clear enough.

With the other friend it is also a very clear and well-defined time bubble — in fact, they are the one who described it as “zeitlich begrenzt”. They are a visiting researcher, here in Colorado just for a few months, like last spring/summer, and actually heading back to Europe again soon, where their whole life and life-plans and other romantic/sexual partners belong. Even in this case, I/we knew it from the start, and I decided very consciously to go into it anyway, and I don’t regret it.

For now I’m going to not think about the final Goodbye, which maybe happened yesterday already or will be in a week or a few weeks. 

But while I live in this moment, and enjoy all its lovely, sweet, healing beauty — as I did for that weekend visiting my other friend in California — remembering that this is a beautiful self-contained time bubble ready to pop is important for me to stay grounded.