Brandon Stanton's Blog, page 149

“We met on the Internet four months ago. Both of us are...

“We met on the Internet four months ago. Both of us are divorced. It’s been forty years since I felt this way. I’m so happy, but I’m nervous too. It’s hard for me to get rid of this feeling that it won’t work out well. But I chose him because he wrote on his profile: ‘I’m an honest man. And I will do what I say.’ I’ve been disappointed a lot. Every past relationship has left a scar. Hopefully this time there will be no scar.”

(Rosario, Argentina)

“Last December my wife lost her job, and now we’re struggling...

“Last December my wife lost her job, and now we’re struggling to get to the end of every month. Around the 20th, we always realize there’s no money left. Half of my paycheck goes to rent. And we’re still in debt from our wedding. We can’t afford to go out anymore. Our diets have changed. Now it seems like money is all we talk about: what bills to pay, what to keep, what to leave out. She thinks I spend on the wrong things. I think she spends on the wrong things. So we end up arguing. But I have faith we will pass this test. Both of us came from difficult backgrounds. She was adopted. My mother abandoned me when I was young. We both know what it means to struggle, and that’s why we chose to be together. I came to this city from a small town because I was looking for happiness. And I found my happiness in her. So we’re going to figure this out.”

(Rosario, Argentina)

“I’m thirty-four and I haven’t felt real love yet. Sometimes I...

“I’m thirty-four and I haven’t felt real love yet. Sometimes I think: ‘Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’ll never get to that point.’ I’ve had a couple of relationships. But a woman has never really made me feel jealous. And I’ve never felt that I would do anything to be with another person. I’ve read about real love in books, and seen it in movies, but I’ve never felt it. Like in the Titanic movie– they are trying so hard to be together. That is hard for me to understand. I’m not sure what that would feel like. There is one movie with Winona Ryder where she is about to join a monastery, but then she meets a gardener, and she kisses him, and suddenly she feels real love. I’m not sure what love feels like. But I’m guessing I’ll know when I feel it. Like Winona Ryder knew.”

(Rosario, Argentina)

“It was boring in the house, so I kept asking my parents for a...

“It was boring in the house, so I kept asking my parents for a younger brother. Then one day, I didn’t want to take a nap, and my mom told me: ‘If you take a nap, you can have a brother in four months!’”

(Cordoba, Argentina)

“I water my lawn every morning and birds come to get worms out...

“I water my lawn every morning and birds come to get worms out of the wet ground. If I ever miss a day, the ground will be too hard, and the birds will sit in the yard and call out because their babies are hungry. That’s how I’ve felt my whole life. Like a bird calling out for food. Thirty years ago I went on strike in this same square. We weren’t getting paychecks. There was no money for bills or food. At the time my sons were one, eight, and nine. So we decided to go camping. I’d go fishing on the lake every night and catch two trout. That was enough to feed the four of us. We did it out of necessity but it was beautiful. My sons are in their thirties now. All of them have flown away. But they remember those times with happiness.”

(San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina)

“My father is a simple laborer and my mother has the brain of...

“My father is a simple laborer and my mother has the brain of a twelve year old child. She has a development problem. I was never able to ask her questions when I was growing up, like: ‘How does this work?’ or ‘What does this mean?’ She was the one asking me all the questions. She never said much to me beyond ‘Hello.’ For the longest time I thought it was normal. But when I started to visit the houses of my friends, I noticed that their mothers were hugging them, and cooking them food, and talking to them. But I had no one to take care of me. I started going to nightclubs at the age of twelve. I had no supervision. I never went to college. I still live at home now. I work seventy hours a week and I don’t have a family of my own. If I left the house, it would be a disaster. Neither of my parents can read or write. I do everything for them. I feel like there are no doors open for me, but often I hear people say: ‘No matter what, you can accomplish your dreams.’ So I do feel guilty for not achieving more.”

(Cordoba, Argentina)

“She wasn’t naming things like other children her age. She...

“She wasn’t naming things like other children her age. She wasn’t pointing at things. She would never respond when we tried to correct her. Often small things would upset her, and we’d try to comfort her, but nothing worked. All I wanted to do was tell her that I loved her and everything would be ‘ok.’ But she would push away if I tried to hug or kiss her. She was my little girl but I couldn’t even hold her. All I ever did was worry about her. We go to a therapist twice a week now, and things are getting better. Everything began to change a few months ago. She pulled me by the hand one morning to show me what she found. And sometimes she looks at me and listens. She’s the first one to wake up in the morning, and she’ll come to the side of the bed, and ask to lie next to us. And she even loves to get hugs and kisses.”

(Buenos Aires, Argentina)

“You can feel in the streets that everyone is worried. We come...

“You can feel in the streets that everyone is worried. We come from a very small town. The engine of our entire economy is a candy factory, and people are getting laid off. I don’t like my job. I package the candies and I have to stay indoors all day. When I was younger, I would think about quitting. My bags were always packed. But everything changes when you feel a small hand gripping your finger. Now I’m terrified of losing my job. Every morning we have a routine. Whenever I don’t feel like going to work, he says ‘come here,’ and he gives me a hug, and that changes me. He’s my battery charger.”

(Cordoba, Argentina)

“There were early signs. I used to have this feeling that I...

“There were early signs. I used to have this feeling that I could manipulate the future. I got lucky at casinos, and I thought it was because I had the power to control events. I was a biology teacher back then. I was married with four kids. I read three books per week. I was only getting a few hours of sleep every night. Then one morning on the bus I had a break from reality. I was speaking to a friend, and I started to understand her in a completely different way. And the things I understood were evil. It was like my entire mental structure had changed. I began to frighten people. I lost all filters. I would say all of the strange things that I was thinking. People thought I was on drugs. I lost my job. My wife went to her mother’s place with the kids. I ended up sleeping on the streets. It took me years to realize I had schizophrenia. I was put in a psychiatric ward for two months. Now I’m taking three different medications. I’m reading books again. I’ve got some self-esteem back. I’m building a relationship with my kids. But I’m still fighting it. It’s always there. It doesn’t come and go. It’s a continuous way of looking at the world that I must keep pushing back against.”

(Cordoba, Argentina)

“I’m the link between him and the rest of the world. It can be...

“I’m the link between him and the rest of the world. It can be an exhausting role. When things go well, I feel an increased sense of responsibility. It felt like the audience was clapping for both of us when he graduated from primary school. But I also feel an increased sense of responsibility when things go wrong. He has difficulties in crowds of people. A few years ago he got very nervous at the supermarket, and he pushed a young girl. Her father got very angry and started screaming at me. Part of me felt guilty for what happened. But part of me wished that more people understood what I go through. We haven’t been to a supermarket since that incident. The best moments for me are when he’s able to link to the world without me. Last Thursday we were visiting another girl with Downs Syndrome. And she was having a bad day. There was very little communication. So he tried to give her a box of dominos as a gift. But she refused. So he tried again. But she refused again. They went back and forth like this for a while, until the girl started to view it as a game, and she started to smile. Then he gave her a hug. A real hug with feeling. He made a connection. And it was his idea. Not mine.”

(Rosario, Argentina)