#finding your tribe

[joeyboy1970]

[mirandamoonmagick]

Just talk... No matter how old the person, or what they look like, or what background they come from. You’ll find there’s a lot more people around you that share your same beliefs than you think. 💫

Finding your tribe is so important to your growth, and you have to remain open to anyone. Sometimes they come in the people you least expect. ✨

[crazylittleentity]

Hands up for the people who are really struggling to find help and a support network for their physical/mental health conditions, be it professional help or personal. It absolutely dumbfounds me that we have all these campaigns and fundraisers for mental and physical health awareness, yet very often when someone actually musters up the courage to ask for help during their darkest of times, their cries are met with full waiting lists or expensive private practice bills that cannot be afforded, or difficult family members and friends who may not be adequately equipped to help you and do more harm than good. I know how you feel, and it sucks ass! It is extremely hard to see the light when all you can see is darkness, no matter which way you turn. I’m not going to sugar-coat this - it can be one of the most painful periods of your lives when you are trying to ask for help and you are met with silence, but please keep trying. Keep searching for your tribe that will love and support you. You may not be able to see it now, but your setbacks are steering you in the right direction and they could very well be blessings in disguise. Just keep going. One day at a time. 

[spiritul-lumii]

te-ai simțit vreodată cu adevărat parte integrantă dintr-un grup, osmotic conectată, într-o simbioză plenară? ți-ai găsit vreodată locul în raza unei sfere, fie ea și restrânsă? te-ai abandonat energiei unui țel comun, fără disconfort sau rezistență prin refuz?

întrebări nerostite

[jivoice]

The Emptiness of a New City and the Power of a 'Third Place' You did it. You packed the boxes, navigated the movers (or bribed friends with pizza), and landed in a brand new city. The first few weeks are a whirlwind of unpacking, figuring out the grocery store, and…

[dimmajo]

THAT YOU FIT IN DOESN'T MEAN YOU BELONG! 🌿

Sometimes life teaches us subtle lessons in crowded rooms, quiet friendships, and unfamiliar smiles. You can walk into a place and adjust your tone.You can learn their language.You can laugh at their jokes, nod at their thoughts, and shape yourself just enough to be accepted. And yes — in that moment, you fit in. But fitting in is not the same as belonging. Fitting in is bending.Belonging is…

View On WordPress

[westar]

[xtrablak674]

Finding Your Tribe

Initially I had come across the image during my morning Tumblr'ing, and as I was wont to do I was doing a reverse image search to find a higher quality version of the image. I mean if I am going to download smut, better have a good-looking version of said smut. During my search I had come across the young man's Twitter account and prayed to my goddess that I wouldn't have to scroll long to get to the image I was looking for.

The thing about scrolling through someone's social media is you get a sense of the person, even if it's a highly curated and polished version. Its the version that they would like the world to see. One thing that became immediately apparent to me is that this curly-haired light-eyed sort of middling looking young man had found his tribe.

His "friends", because I am not sure what the kids are calling them these days, especially when the lines between plutonic and sexual were so clearly blurred, were clearly of the same tribe. Young people and others who had similar sexual interest and also loved documenting their merry-making in photographs, gifs and videos. Celebrating their lust and loves in a very public fashion. It had me very curious what these misfits did for work, because clearly they didn't care that their faces with dick in mouth were on very open display for all to see.

I could map the similar aesthetic between them, artsy but alternative, definitely not the main-stream gays that colour places like Chelsea but the on-the-edge queers who would exist in places like Bushwick barely boarding on being hipsters but divergent enough to be their own sub-genre of gay. Whereas a Manhattan gay may brag about wearing Prada and Louis Vuitton these ones would thrive in a new piece thrifted at L Train Vintage, never caring for those luxury brands but finding solace in their grandfather's old boots or jacket, paired with their grandma's pearls.

After watching the twelfth episode of Tracker last night where Colter finally met up with his wayward and possibly murderous older brother Russell, this made me think of the last time I had a tribe to speak of. And it would be back when my mom was still alive and I lived with my two younger siblings. It was the only time in my life I had a true connection to someone else around me, and albeit after her passing and our separation I would never truly find anything remotely the same.

In college I had a "crew" of sort largely based around the terraces where I lived my freshman year at this private college in upstate New York. They were gay, like I was at the time, some were lower-class like I thought I was, and would only later find out I was actually middle-class. None were of color, which then made me a novelty of sorts. I recall quite often being quizzed about how to use the language these upper-class queers had just learned from Jennie Livingston's infamous documentary Paris is Burning.

Ms. Trevor how do I say FIERCE? And what exactly is shade? Girl, teach me how to vogue! I mean I did my best to hobble together bits an pieces from my short-lived foray in the queer culture of New York City, which I had only really begin to explore the peaks of in my last two years in high school right in the middle of Manhattan. But this didn't feel exactly like my tribe, I seemed to be torn between allegiance to the HEOP Black kids on campus and the LGBT queer kids, not totally fitting in with either because of either class, orientation, how I preformed gender or how I performed race.

Post-college I continued the activism I had started moving into HIV/AIDS education through GMHC. Joining their youth program which was made up of primarily of other post-college kids but unlike upstate was more diverse having more woman, Black and people of color in its ranks. I can say I felt a connection to these young people as we tried our best to educate others our age and younger about how to navigate the complexities of trying to stay safe while being a young queer.

I have always had very mixed feelings about work relationships and albeit there are some people I met at my first advertising agency job that I would connect with an be friends with years after I left that company. I am not sure any of those relationship had a tribal feel to them.

My next significant connections would be to small or micro-business owners I had associated with through a non-profit that was out to help us with micro-loans. I was never really interested in the loans having long had an aversion to debt, but I did like the fellowship with the mostly Black business owners and using my own brand design business to help these folks out, at least with the visual aspects of their own brands.

But like all things that passed too.

The last fifteen years I have been a loner, most of my friendships drifting a part for one reason or another. I even stopped dating and then sexual relations too. It is a popular platitude to say to young people that you will find your tribe, I just haven't found that to be true. It has felt like all throughout my life I have had to partition pieces of myself to be accepted in certain areas. Even my fifteen year stay on Flickr seemed to be primarily based on folks sexual desires towards me, not really seeing me as a whole but just parts of a whole.

At this point I have let it all go, and find solace and comfort in my own company or in having parasocial relationships with the characters in my comics, books or television shows. If a tribe is a thing, its a thing that has always eluded me, maybe my not being able to compromise my values to 'group think' and allow folks to make me feel less than I am has not allowed me to assimilate into a group dynamic. Maybe my strong sense of self and moral aptitude and not ever being one to succumb to peer pressure or other ill-conceived notions has left me adrift. I am not sure I will ever understand how to be a part of a group.

My nephew was talking to me last week about this group chat, and I thought I have never been in anyone group anything. Even my attempts to start them have failed, like the group I created on Facebook for my fellow grand jury members. I thought we had an amazing eighteen month together, but I think afterwards we became the strangers that we were before. This has been the rhythm of my life since my mom died and I truly don't think it will ever change, and curiously I am okay with that.

Albeit our society loves to preach about how important relationships with others are I have found I think the most important relationship you can have is one with yourself, one unbound by pretense, pretensions and falsehoods. One unencumbered by expectations, animosity and aggression. One that lies in seeing who you are and appreciating all aspect of whom that person is and what they bring to the table never asking them to select which pieces are the most suitable for acceptance. But embracing, loving and encouraging them to come as they are and be welcomed.

[Photo by Brown Estate]