need for camraderie

“Oh you can be anybody you want to be, you can love whomever you will,
you can travel any country where your heart roams, and know that I
will love you still. You can live by yourself, you can gather friends
around, you can choose one special one. And the only measure of your
words and your deeds will be the love you leave behind when you’re
done”

“If perchance I were sent to a distant hollow
Sweetest Love I ask,
With me should you follow?

Would you close your eyes
And hold your breath,
Take a step into Tomorrow?

Would you grasp my hand
And still my heart
Purge me of my Sorrow”

-The Hopeful Appeal, Minyoung Sohn

“Love, Devotion, Feeling, Emotion

Don’t be afraid to be weak
Don’t feel proud to be strong
Just look into your heart, my friend
That will be the return to yourself,
The return to innocence

The return to innocence

If you want then start to laugh
if you must then start to cry
Yourself don’t hate
Just believe in destiny
Don’t care what people say
Just follow your own way
Don’t give up and use the chance
To return to innocence.

That’s not the beginning of the end
That’s the return to yourself
The return to innocence”

— The Return to Innocence

I remember listening to this on a bus with my head pressed against the
window, looking out, on the way to cedar point at the end of my senior
year of high school. I was feeling, as andrew tobias might have put
it, “Cosmic”. Lost, knowing that the familiar was falling away,
knowing that I’d already changed, and was going to change even more
soon. Fearful and hopeful. But mostly lost. And alone.

Sheesh, I must be obsessed or something, referring to virtualexile‘s journal so much, but setting that aside…

Monsieur Exile spoke of the damage done by unrealistic expectations,
particularly of romantic relationships.

“I’m not the sort of person who falls in and quickly out of love, but
to you I gave my affection right from the start”

Those who know alot of my history without knowing alot of the workings
of my heart, might find it surprising that I consider myself deeply
romantic. I’ve serenaded boyfriends with love songs, and recited
poetry on first dates. I cook dinners for two on minimal provocation.
I’ve walked 20 minutes in the rain just to give a boyfriend company
for a 10 minute walk to his place, then walked 30 minutes home. I
once spent half my savings to fly out to meet someone (big mistake, on
so many levels =). I once saw a [really cute], total stranger, looking
totally down in the dumps one thursday (I think) in september or
october of 2000, while I was skating through the peace garden of
chicago’s north side lakeshore park. I sat down next to him, started
talking and ended up taking him on an impromptu date, my treat, to a
semi-expensive restaurant not far away. We had a blast, kissed
goodnight (then I drove back to the burbs.) I then angsted about
it for a month when I lost his number (and Randy, if ever read this,
send me email or something =). I my heart out 10 times a week. Yet
it never seems to work out. I’m pretty clear on the fact that I fall
pretty hard pretty fast. But I have alot of practice recovering from
the thousand natural heartbreaks that I am heir to. Maybe I’m looking
for something other than love. And from all the wrong people.

spupeh talked about intimacy in a nonsexual
sense. I think that like so many of us, I heap high expectations on
romantic relationships, and take what could otherwise be great
friendships and turn them into failed romances.

I think the thing that is missing from Chris’s analysis of the issue
though is the source of this nonsexual intimacy (be the relationships
containing them sexual or not). I think it requires shared goals.
That’s why priests and soldiers have it. And gay men are losing it.
Our parades as a representation of the “out&proud” contingent of our
[sub]culture have turned from “Notice Us” to “Notice Me” (and I admit
to some guilt on this score myself).

This is pretty much what I found that I loved about the chorus. The
shared goal of joint artistic expression. Creation of something
beautiful. That was probably the biggest thing I miss from Chicago.
And something that visiting back here doesn’t really provide me.