One third

It hit me all of a sudden last night while I was brushing my teeth: four months is a third of a year, a consistent part of a whole year. Four and a half months was the time my European genderqueer friend spent here in Colorado this year and the amount of time they were hoping to spend with me — me, one of the three people they ultimately came to love (& consider) as a partner. All of a sudden it hit me that I might have been more important to them than I ever realized, and that I might have missed out on something big. 

When they arrived in March, we reconnected at the end of the month as I was struggling with huge stress from my housing situation and still feeling uncomfortable & vulnerable in the outside world with my post-op body. The reconnection was joyful and intense and immediate on both sides but then I got totally (re)absorbed by trying to get myself back onto my feet, trying to get my life back on track. They pursued me throughout April without my realizing it — I only understood it in retrospect when they brought it up and pointed it out to me explicitly last week. 

Throughout the relationship with my European genderqueer friend I often thought about various examples and true stories recounted in the book by Amy Gahran Stepping off the relationship escalator, which relates many different types of profound, significant relationships and different ways of living them or handling them, including polyamory, distance relationships, and tribe/village/extended chosen family situations. I read this book in February and already back then the true stories of people with (more or less significant) partners in distant parts of the country or even on another continent really struck me: in some cases, the relationships were casual and far apart; in others, the people involved spent chunks of dedicated time together, like several months every year, often dividing the year between periods they spent with one partner in one part of the world and other periods they spent in (a) different location(s) with other partner(s) or on their own. These stories in the book really hit home with me, already back then in February, as something that I could potentially imagine happening in my own life, maybe because of old “friends with benefits” or “special friends” that I have had in the past and with whom I could have imagined — or still could envision — such a development, if only we considered it a viable option. 

So all of a sudden last night the thought, or question, hit me — and then a whole chain-reaction of questions: “was this what my European genderqueer friend had imagined for/between us? or maybe not quite envisioned for us but sort of spontaneously, almost unconsciously, sought out? if so, why didn’t they bring it up when we were discussing future options/solutions before our forced separation? why did they limit themself to proposing we meet for a week at a conference next June?? on the other hand, would I really want, or be ready for, a one-third-of-a-year steady, nearby relationship with this person (or anyone else) & two-thirds-of-the-year distance relationship? would I really want another spring or summer like the one I had this year with my European genderqueer friend? 

The only answer I have now is to the last of these questions, and the answer to that, in all honesty, is NO. It was lovely the way it was for a couple months this year but it wasn’t, and wouldn’t be, sustainable in that way. 

The other questions I’m going to let sit, maybe discuss them with my European genderqueer friend when we eventually reconnect and if it seems appropriate then. 

In the meantime, I’m going to rebuild my wholeness here — or, at least, try to do my best at that — try to live beyond that “one third” again…