brady-personal

[brady-personal]

16

ok i have had quite the week

last weekend caroline was here and i decided to enter a ho phase

i went on a date on monday and it was fine but the guy was really introverted and kept telling me how we were really compatible because of our myers-briggs bc he’s INTJ and i’m ENFP and it was a little overkill tbh although he was really nice and i had a good evening nonetheless but when i got back i was chatting with this guy named mardav and i decided to randomly tell him everything about me and my nonexistent sex life

he was really cool and open minded and was like “if you wanna try to fuck let’s hang out and i’ll make it a good experience for you because so many guys have bad first experiences and i would make yours good” etc etc so i was like ok brady just do it so we planned to meet up wednesday night

meanwhile i saw a doctor on wednesday morning (wednesday was a big day!) to get started on prep because i thought that would help me be more confident to be sexual so i had a physical/STI test

wednesday night i decided last minute i didn’t want it to be completely random (honestly that’s not me i don’t think) so i asked if we could get a drink before hand and so we went to flowers in udistrict and honestly really hit it off. he was really nice and sweet and cute! we got really drunk and went back to his place and had sex

i didn’t finish and neither did he but i was still happy about this experience and we ended up chatting and fooling around until 4:30ish in the morning and i “slept” until 7 and then ubered back

i was really happy

and then thursday night my mental health literally exploded, and it’s been awful ever since. i’m very excited to go to therapy tonight and talk about it

i just hate everything and i hate how depressed i am and how hard i have to work to appear normal

nothing ever stops or takes a break

notes for my therapist: i miss the past, friend groups in seattle, looking at IG and feeling disconnected, not sure what’s normal, sad with memories being memories, hard to be alone with thoughts, always needing to be connected

i also hate my job

ok bye

- 

[brady-personal]

“Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting - over and over announcing your place in the family of things.

[brady-personal]

15 (manifest 1)

seven steps: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/7-steps-to-manifest-anyth_b_7806936

JUDGMENT OF YOURSELF DOESN’T HELP YOU MANIFEST ANYTHING

What do I want?

- i want to understand myself sexually. This includes my preferences, and what I want from my intimate relations with other people. i want to know that i’m deserved to be loved, and also treated as a sexual object

- i want to produce music to express myself, and ultimately release it to share my art with others. this will allow me to take myself seriously as an artist

- i want to like my job. i want to appreciate the independence that my job gives me, and the places it can take me, and get the most out of my position as possible

- i want to feel a part of the greater seattle community. i want to feel like i know people around this city and that i can extend my roots here. i want to feel more grounded, symbolically, but also physically.

- i want to have a better body. i want to continue growing, and knowing that i am able to have the body i want, which is more toned. not necessarily bodybuilder status, but bigger biceps, shoulders, and pecs. and butt ;)

- i want to feel more independent, and less controlled by external forces. like social media, marijuana, and toxic relationships

[brady-personal]

14

ok last night was weird and i want to document it

so i went home early-ish from work (after a great day of work tbh) because i started feeling super, super congested and wanted to stay in bed all night. i felt like using a neti pot, so i stopped by bartell drugs on the way home from the bus and got one. next to the neti pot was the enema section, and i decided randomly to get one (along with the condoms i got earlier this week) to start exploring myself sexually, something i’ve been trying to manifest as of recently (and will be posting in my next entry about)

so i used the neti pot and it felt amazing omfg i’m a little obsessed with neti-ing but then afterwards i got a little high (something i’ve been trying to take a break from but i thought tonight could be a cheat night because i don’t necessarily need to cut cold turkey, can def just taper down) and did my enema which i thought would feel nice while high but i didn’t realize i bought one with LAXATIVES in them!!!!!

so i was literally pooping my brains out for two hours and my heart rate was RACING because being high and taking laxatives is probably a lot on my body and in my high paranoia i legit thought i was going to have a heart attack so that anxiety was making my heart race even FASTER

to calm myself down, i looked at porn. it was fx rios with the white dude at the picnic, where they have the sexiest fuck after. this is a clip that i think about a lot when fantasizing, because in my high stupor i figured that if i was going to cheat on porn once, at least choose a clip i’ve been missing

i thought it’d be a good practice on self-forgiveness as i need to forgive myself for breaking my 122 day streak without porn. and i think that worked. i don’t feel angry at myself, and to be honest, because i was high, it was almost like the experience didn’t even happen. i don’t remember things often when i’m high. i think, for me to have “fucked up” my streak, this is the best way i could have gone about it, and i feel more mindful after in this new world where i’m allowed to fuck up and forgive myself

but also, in therapy, we’ve been talking about whether this is fucking up. it’s normal to have cravings, and i think i am having great progress with my mental health that is independent to my masturbation. so, to be honest, maybe this is a wake up call that the world isn’t ending if i watch porn/masturbate. not to say i’m getting a free pass to start up full force again, and i’m continuing to be mindful AND put myself out there more sexually (once again, something to tackle in a later post, probably the next one)

either way, i’m happy that it’s the next morning, i survived a laxative while high, and my bowels are as clean as a whistle. it was really scary tbh. i was panicking hardcore, but was able to use mindfulness and yoga to break myself out of it a little. and now i just wanna fuck tbh haha

so we’ll see what happens!

[brady-personal]

13

i just feel numb

is it the medicine? or is it my lack of care for my body? i finally slept for 8 hours without the use of marijuana and i just felt like i would feel more rested, but i feel even more dead than i did yesterday

i think i’m sick tbh but unsure how much that affects my disposition

michael explained mental health as a circle, saying we have a part of the circle that is strong and vital and a part that is weaker, and that we naturally cycle along this circle. when we’re in the weak section, we forget all the progress we’ve made in the strong section, and fear we will never make it back to where we once were. i’m unclear if he is intrinsically explaining bipolar disorder, or if that is a “normal” distribution for human beings

why am i so obsessed with what is “normal”?

[brady-personal]

12

there’s a limit to what a friend can provide, emotionally

on one hand, it’s bad to bottle things in, but it’s also not fair to burden your friends with your problems. i’ve noticed that often people say they’re listening when they’re not, and when i’m hyper conscious of that, it becomes really painful and isolating to talk about my problems. so then i bottle them in more.

i just got lunch with xinrui and it just felt...distant. like we were in two different worlds. she’s bubbly and talking about her subtle work problems and i’m a literal mess, coming down from smoking way too much weed last night, feeling unproductive as fuck, and i hear myself in my rant to her and realize that my negativity seems to be making her uncomfortable. and it hits me that i feel that way all the time when everyone is so depressing in this city and i’m overwhelmed because i just want to be happy and not have friends who complain to me all the time. so when that table turns, and i’m the one complaining, it just feels like rock bottom.

i think my marijuana usage is fucking with my mental health recovery. i’m paying a psychiatrist so i can get treatment, and actively stunting the growth. i’m embarrassed by my addiction, embarrassed for my own roommates or best friends to know how much i smoke, but i have issues stopping it because it has become such a habit.

in fairness, i’ve only been back on smoking for the past three weeks or so. but i’ve now been on this drug for about six weeks, and i think that’s not the best time to be messing with the formula. if i stop now, i hope i can get back to the progress i’ve had, or if not, become aware if citalopram is right for me. and i’m partially ashamed to tell my psychiatrist about this once i’m back, because i’m afraid he’ll be ashamed of me.

my therapist is an advocate for marijuana, which is amazing and innovative but also hard when i know that he might not understand where i’m coming from with all of this

i hate that i’m secretly typing all these things at work instead of being anywhere but work right now.

[brady-personal]

1-10 reflections

these posts are so funny to read in hindsight. i want to respond to the previous posts, as if i’m answering questions from the future. which i suppose i am.

1

there’s a lot of pain in this post, likely because this was the year i really started forcing myself to analyze my sexuality. 

i still find it so fascinating how clear it was to me. while i might argue i still don’t understand my sexuality (and likely never will), there was no period where i really thought i was straight, at least once i hit the age of fifteen, three years before this post. i remember getting off to porn, watching the guy, falling in love with his grunts and his machismo, wanting nothing more than to be held by him and be looked at like how he was looking at the girl. like a meal ready to be devoured. but there was nothing i was ready to do at that time, so i told myself to “wait until i was in college to figure it out” and consequently wasting a ton of time in high school

although i suppose we never truly “waste time” as sometimes things aren’t ready to happen and we have little control over that

i think this is about allison. i’m unsure (and maybe a later post would clarify this), but this beautiful theater girl was interested in me, and i think, if anything, this was a confusing confidence booster for me. this was the first year where multiple people were pining for me, mostly bc i exuded asexuality (bc of my confused sexuality) and this was when i became a little flirty, a characteristic i hold to this day. 

this is evident from my reaction to people online thinking i’m cute. now, i know i am attractive, but that also comes from me growing out of an awkward stage and developing a style of my own, something very few high school seniors have. but there is so much hatred in these words, looking at how shocked i was that people could be attracted to me. 

i started learning that i could be a sexual creature, but was not ready to actualize that and feel whole about it. something i still struggle with to this day.

tbh, this is pretty self aware though. i’ve always been pretty self aware, maybe because i have generalized anxiety and look at every angle of every situation. i want to understand the full picture. either way, reading

“but i have interest in being with this girl and i can’t tell if it is because she’s so interested in me or because it is truly what i want“

is remarkable, because i was right. while i was a little sexually curious, i think it was more that she liked me and that felt good. 

this is an exciting post, because i had SO much in the future i had no idea about that would provide some clarity. but wow, the confusion is real

2

little did i know how marijuana would fuck up my mental health. i’m happy i didn’t have a joint in this post, and it’s funny to see how drinking black tea made me feel “so zen” when i struggle to feel that way now without weed.

i remember so much about the timing of this post--this is right when i met lincoln, the first boy who ever expressed interest in me (that i was aware of). he was from tumblr. not sure if i discuss this later, but we eventually met. 

i remember being locked in my house bc it was so cold outside, and spending so much time talking to this boy online to pass the time.

also, no one is reading this blog as it is password protected, so i’m unsure who i thought i was talking to in the last paragraph. but here’s where the ego started :)

5

ok brady you do this to people all the time. sometimes people just don’t want to talk!

like i get so annoyed at people expecting my attention all the time, especially with how connected we’re forced to be with the internet. if i could go back i’d tell brady to chill out and stop personalizing everything bc, while i don’t remember the exact context of this post, it’s very likely that someone is just sleepy and doesn’t want to keep up a conversation

but also lol this is kind of cute

7

i’m so curious who this is about??? 

to my understanding, i came out to ria first in the sonic parking lot and then came out to sonia in her living room. but i wouldn’t describe either of them as “not one of my best friends but someone i love very much.” i really don’t know who this is about........!!! gonna keep thinking about it

but i think what i was feeling was acceptance, and that’s a beautiful thing.

omg i remember lincoln answering those questions. in hindsight, it’s so perfectly timed that i cannot believe that just serendipitously happened. that boy totally asked himself those questions and hoped i would see it. i cannot believe that worked HAHA (of course i could be wrong but i’ll never know so it doesn’t really matter)

lol @ “this is all happening really fast” like for seventeen year old brady probably but in reality nothing had really happened. but i miss this romantic excitement--i rarely feel this anymore

also i didn’t end up taking ap macro so CRISIS AVERTED

“happy someone of each gender likes me” (no probably about it) shows i was kind of just ego tripping here, collecting these experiences to choose what path to take, ultimately taking neither really. but that all comes out later :)

8

i don’t remember him meaning that much to me. but this is kind of nice to read. i never had that experience of waiting by my phone for texts, which should have said something about my feelings for him versus the girls.

“see him and kiss him” aw that’s so cute

“or if he’s just a horny guy” is where this all began, putting criticism towards that horniness as if it’s a bad thing, thinking it’s bad that a guy could maybe just wanna fuck me and that being a bad thing. but we have so many types of human connections, and sometimes all we’re meant to do with someone is fuck. not that i would know..........

9

ROSENDO! ugh this was one of the best nights of my high school life. it was easter i remember, and i felt so unholy and that was exciting to me

feeling like a “bad boy”

(i’m going to read this in five more years and cringe at that term but i guess i mean it tongue in cheek. not “bad boy” like jesse katsopolis but allowing myself to do things that are pleasure focused)

an older mexican man. seemed like perfection, right? to think that i thought of him as so mature, when i’m now almost 23 and he was only 20! i can’t believe rosendo was only 20. wow. such a baby, and the fact that i thought of him as such an expert in this world. sure, he was more experienced than i was at 20, but he was such a baby. i remember him turning 21 and thinking it was so crazy that he could buy us alcohol.

he was a really good kisser

10 

there’s a lot to unpack with this one

kyle was incredible, unfortunately he moved and i was kind of a dick about it and he cut me out and hasn’t talked to me since. i think we texted once about a year ago but he has pretty actively tried to get some distance. he lives in LA now and is super into video games. his mental health is still not great i think. i wonder about him sometimes and i hope he’s doing well-- he really was a sweetheart.

i didn’t get into UROP

and that friend group was super dangerous for me, so learning that it’s ok that they didn’t want to hang out with me was super substantial. cutting the cord was great. now sean lives in vancouver and i’ve tried relentlessly to see him but alas he’s distant and hard to reach. even my own mother told me to stop caring about him haha. so i guess mom knows best, as usual

and, to this day, flamboyant men still make me uncomfortable, even though i am one of the now. mostly because they are so confident and sure of themselves, and i am not. i look it though, and i know many people would be surprised to hear me say that i am anything but confident. but it’s a facade we all put on one way or another, and one day i hope to be one of those flamboyant out-and-proud gay men who i secretly looked up to, even five years ago

[brady-personal]

11

i haven’t updated this blog in over four years

it’s funny looking back at these and realizing how much time has passed and how little has changed because i feel a lot of things stay stagnant in our personality

i’ve dated a lot of boys since kyle but none who i have given chance to have a huge impact

the gay community is confusing because, while my whole life i was told to prefer monogamy, the community overall encourages polyamory and, in hindsight, i might too

but i don’t know

because my whole life that has never been exposed to me or encouraged

i was listening to a podcast this morning about growing up catholic and how it gives you a good/bad boy dichotomy--a good boy is nice and loyal, while a bad boy is impulsive and hormonal. ferocious. sexually hungry

and that is a natural state

...that i’ve never allowed myself

i never let a boy touch me because i innately feel it is bad to feel pleasure. this is a brain/heart split, because logically i know sex is connecting and beautiful, but emotionally i feel dirty and i don’t know how to go about working on that

in vancouver this past weekend juliet gave me the following piece of advice: “you’ll become more confident with the people around you, romantically or not, once you find out what you want from connecting with them” how am i expected to know if want to get with x boy if i don’t know if i want to get with x boy? or any boy?

have i doubted my sexuality? yes, but it’s unfounded, but it’s justified. porn has confused me, masturbation has confused me, drugs and alcohol has confused me, my previous trauma has confused me. maybe i should identify as “whatever” because that’s how i feel. one day, i could be with a girl. it just needs to feel natural. and given that most sexual interactions have felt unnatural, how am i expected to know what i am or how i feel?

when someone wants commitment with me, i run scared. is it that i’m afraid of intimacy, or because i don’t actually want a monogamous relationship? how am i expected to figure out my sexual shit when i’m terrified of answering these questions?

because in one way i’m emotionally unavailable, and in the other i am afraid to be a “bad boy”

i just want to be a bad guy, like the one billie eilish sings about. and she’s seventeen. fuck. i’m almost twenty three.

[brady-personal]

10

Months later.  I'm dating this guy named Kyle right now and I'm really happy, except for the fact he's moving in 3 weeks to California. This is the first real commitment I've felt with anyone and I'm honestly pretty comfortable with it. He's cute (in a super nerdy way), funny, and all around just an amazing guy. I'm sad he's moving, but I'm moving in two months anyways so it would have to end one way or another.

On that note, I am almost ready to consider myself a college student. I didn't get into the research program (UROP), but maybe I'll be taken off the wait list by the time school starts. Or I won't, whatever. I refuse to start college feeling like a failure like I almost-kinda-sorta did in high school.

I'm SO happy that I'm going to Michigan because I love the campus and it's so accepting of everything. I just want to start the next chapter and grow up. Have freedom. Not fear my "parents finding out."

Today was the Chicago Pride Parade (which I didn't attend because I had work). I have a huge problem with extremely gay people (is that hypocritical?) so I don't think I would have had a good time, but I was not invited to go with Sean and Justin and all of them. I think I've finally been rejected from that friend group after 4 years of pretending, but maybe that's OK. We're all going different places to do different things, maybe it's time to cut the fucking cord already.

[brady-personal]

9

last night was so surreal. this guy i work with picked me up really late and we went out for food but then i insisted that we park somewhere to talk a little more before i went home and then out of nowhere he starts making out with me and telling me how much he likes me and how sexy and beautiful i am and his lips were so nice and he is so attractive and omg i'm still in complete disbelief this actually happened so now he's waiting for me to tell him whether i'm interested in being with him because he "really likes me" and he's 20 and mexican and so hot and i just can't handle this right now

[brady-personal]

8

It's been a few weeks and a lot of shit has happened. Two (yes two) completely normal amazing awesome girls have fallen for me and it's really sad that any guy would be ecstatic but I am not because of the whole, you know, gay thing

It sucks though because i still want these people to like me but at the same time I don't want to be with them. it feels unfair for them (mostly one in particular right now tbh)

But then there's him who I talked about before. we met on tumblr and we video chatted for almost 5 hours last night and i literally cannot stop thinking about him. it's really sad and stupid actually because he lives thousands of miles away from me but all i want to do is fly to florida and see him and kiss him and be with him and ...

Now he isn't texting me back. He's probably asleep. I feel like a stalker or something that this bothers me but I just want him to talk to me right now. I haven't heard his voice in like 24 hours and i miss it. i can't even tell if he is actually interested in me or if he's just a horny guy but for whatever reason, he has completely occupied my brain for the last 24 hours and i just want to hear him again.

[brady-personal]

7

Today i came out to one of my friends. Not one of my best friends but someone I love very much. It added to my story that I was telling her and she was super cool about it. I love how it seems people don't give a shit -- in fact it's almost as if the people I've told like it because I seem more... me. Idk. I just reread that and this doesn't make any sense. Whatever.

I'm really really excited about something else though. So there's this guy I met online and we've been talking a lot recently. Today, some anon's were asking him questions on his page. One of the questions someone asked was if he was interested in anyone at the moment and he said yeah. Another question asked how he met this person and he said "via tumblr" but refused to say anything else about the person...

This is all happening really fast. I am so happy if he is talking about me but at the same time 1) what's the use of dating on the internet if he does not live near me and 2) I have my whole situation with the girl back home (who by the way just texted me saying she switched in my AP Macro class next semester...)

I don't know what I want to do. if this post gets deleted it's because he's looking at the blog. I just am happy that someone of each gender (probably) likes me but idk what to do. So confused rn not gonna lie

[brady-personal]

6

i can't believe i'm saying this but i'm so fucking done staying home everyday. i like need to go back to school. i feel so unproductive and there's shit i have to do like laundry and cleaning and homework but i'm too lazy to move because that's what winter break did to me. i'm going to die if there's another fucking "cold day" tomorrow

[brady-personal]

5

it really annoys me when someone stops responding or they say they have to go somewhere but i can see them online interacting with other people, showing they obviously just got tired of you. what a fucking slap in the face.

[brady-personal]

4

MY SCHOOL JUST CALLED AND WE HAVE NO SCHOOL TOMORROW EITHER OMG I'M NEVER GOING TO GET THIS HOMEWORK DONE

[brady-personal]

3

I fell asleep at 4am last night but I managed to finish Season 1 of Friends! So now I must finally get at that dreaded physics packet that I've been postponing for two weeks and a day now. My friend is back from India and I want to see her but it is literally -13˚ outside right now (what the fuck).

One of my posts is finally getting attention! Almost 200 notes overnight and I really hope it keeps spreading :)

[brady-personal]

2

Black tea is the fucking shit. I'm so zen right now. If only I had a joint or something, this would be the most chill night in a long time.

I made a friend on Tumblr last night and we've been kiking. It's really nice to talk to another gay person about my issues because I feel that there is no one in my life that I am comfortable talking to and also knows what I am going through. It makes me realize that being gay is beautiful and honestly I wouldn't change it. Guys are just fucking hot, what can I say.

So it is currently -5˚ outside right now and declining. School was cancelled tomorrow due to a high risk of frostbite for being outside for a mere ten minutes. So winter break, and my procrastination, has been extended one day. I have a physics packet that is staring at me from across the room right now but fuck it, it's 1:36 AM, I'm just going to sit here, kik my new friend, watch Friends and drink a shitton of tea. Raging on the last night of winter break here in the Brady household.

My kik is bradyontheinternet btw if any of you beautiful people want to message me. If I don't seem responsive, don't be offended. I have this bad quality of only exerting effort in texting/messaging if there is something specific to talk about (aka no small talk). To all of you who have kik'd me about my looks, you're the best and I love you : ) Did I really just type that?