Brandon Stanton's Blog, page 73

“I’m committed to finishing this. I’m on page 83 right now. I...

“I’m committed to finishing this.  I’m on page 83 right now.  I haven’t finished anything in a long time.  So even if I only read ten pages a day, I’m going to finish.  I just need to prove to myself that I can.  After graduation I moved back to my hometown.  I just wanted to recharge.  But I’d been away for so long that I didn’t know who I was anymore.  My bedroom was exactly the same.  My NYU acceptance letter was still hanging on the wall.  My varsity letter jacket was in the closet.  I had this wooden peg with like twenty academic medals on it.  I’d always been the smart one in our family.  Everyone thought I was going to do so much.  But somehow I’d lost my way.  I’d gone to this big city, and gotten this big education, and I’d wasted it all.  I have no idea what to do with my life.  Even my laugh has changed.  It used to be my favorite thing about myself.  But now it sounds hollow.  Like I’m faking it.  Or just mimicking other people.  I feel like I’m not a whole person.  I used to read so much as a kid.  I finished War and Peace when I was thirteen.  So I just need to prove to myself that I can finish this.  Maybe if I can finish one thing, it’ll open me up to that girl again.  The one who knew everything and what she wanted to be.”

“I’ve been telling myself since the age of twelve: ‘I’ve got to...

“I’ve been telling myself since the age of twelve: ‘I’ve got to be a mogul.  I’ve got to be the greatest.  I’ve got to get my family out of the hood.’  I started working full time at the age of eighteen, doing door-to-door sales for a gas and electric company.  They’d give me $20 every time I signed up a new customer.  I worked harder than anyone.  I’d wake up at 6 AM every day.  I became one of their top performing vendors.  I opened new offices.  I trained people to work for me.  I thought I was happy, but it was just temporary happiness.  I was money-minded.  I was only chasing vanity.  I didn’t care about nobody.  Not you.  Not your family.  The only thing I cared about was what you could do for me.  But Shanice changed all that.  She made me more spiritual.  She’s loving.  She’s caring.  And she’s confident.  I thought I was confident, but I was just cocky.  Shanice is confident.  She knows what she deserves.  She gives out nothing but love, and that’s what she expects.  I can’t imagine calling her out of her name.  I can’t imagine hurting her feelings.  I can’t imagine breaking her heart.  I put her on such a high pedestal.  I was scared to even touch her when we met.  But now that she’s let me up on the pedestal with her, I want to take her even higher.”

(2/2) “He hates when I tell this story. But he saw me for the...

(2/2) “He hates when I tell this story.  But he saw me for the first time in Home Depot, and he was way too afraid to talk to me.  So he got my name from a friend and sent me a message on social media.  We got pregnant one year after we met.  Fabian did everything for the baby: every meal, every feeding, every bath.  And you can absolutely tell.  Their connection is undeniable.  Just the way he looks at her.  So much awe and love.  The exact same way he looked at her on the day she was born.  He has a James Earl Jones style of parenting.  I’m always so high-pitched and chirpy, but he’s smooth and monotone and deep.  In the weeks after my cancer diagnosis, I kept noticing that he’d sit in his car after pulling into the driveway.  I’d hear the music turn off.  But he’d take several minutes to come inside.  So one day I walked out there and found him crying and praying.  He was trying to get it all out so he could be strong when he came inside.  I have girlfriends that question how their husbands feel about them.  But I never do.  Never have.  Because he lets me know every day.  He calls me every single lunch break.  And he still looks at me the exact same way that he did when we walked down the aisle.”

(½) “My mother was literally a drill sergeant. And my...

(½)  “My mother was literally a drill sergeant.  And my father was Olympic level karate.  So between the two of them, there was always someone pushing me to be better. I grew up with this competitive thing inside me that always wanted to be the best.  And that carried into adulthood.  By the time Logan was born, I was working sixty hour weeks.  She was born on a Tuesday, and I was back at work on Thursday.  My husband did everything.  I’d come home, give the baby a kiss, then shut the office door.  I told myself that I needed to work a little harder, get a little more security, then later on I could stop and enjoy life.  But that time never came.  Because each time I reached a goal, I’d increase it a little more.  When Logan turned three, I was diagnosed with brain cancer.  At the time they told me ten years.  We’re on year six right now.  All my scans are clear.  The tumor is still there, but it’s not growing.  Who knows what will happen.  But I do know that without the cancer, my little girl would have grown up without me.  I’d have been around, but not there.  We’d never be sitting in this park right now.  So I’ve come to believe that everything happens for a reason.  I was never afraid of dying.  Even in the beginning.  But I was always terrified of leaving her.  And that fear changed everything.”

“As a working parent, I’m always tired. I don’t have time to...

“As a working parent, I’m always tired.  I don’t have time to think.  I speed walk wherever I go.  When I finally get home in the evening, I just want to lie in bed and watch TV.  But it’s summer now.  So the kids always want to do something.  It’s so tempting to tell them ‘later,’ or ‘next week.’  But I force myself to do it.  I get out of the apartment and go to the park.  Or the museum.  Or the beach.  Because no matter how I feel, I know there’s such little, little time.  It seems like just the other day I was pregnant.  I was so excited and nervous.  Now next week my oldest son is turning ten.  I look back and say: ‘Oh my God.’  It all passed in the blink of an eye.  Working, working, working.  Never enough hours in the day.  Just trying to survive.  But I was a good mother.  I’m proud of that.  I always made time and space.  Even if I was exhausted.  Because I knew the time I was exhausted was the only time I had.”

“I was a really fat adolescent. I weighed well over 200 lbs. I...

“I was a really fat adolescent.  I weighed well over 200 lbs.  I was always depressed.  I was in this ‘punk rock,’ ‘fuck the jock,’ kind of ethos.  I looked down on sports culture.  But we had a compulsory weight training course during my freshman year of high school.  At first I hated it.  Absolutely hated it.  But the teacher was this terrifying, hulking man.  So I followed his instructions.  He gave me a sheet of exercises, and I checked off all the boxes.  And afterwards I felt amazing.  I don’t think PE teachers get enough credit.  He changed my life.  He forced me to discover the high you get from physical activity.  And exercise has been my medicine ever since.  Right now I’m working as a bike messenger.  I ride about twenty miles a day.  It’s not even financially necessary because I own my own company.  But it takes the energy out of my weird thoughts.  It keeps me from honing in on the negative aspects of my life.  Things are good right now.  I’m very lucky.  And that becomes clear to me when I’m physically engaged.  So I always keep moving.  I’m literally cycling away from my depression, and it works.“

“Adults guess and assume that I’m not going to understand things...

“Adults guess and assume that I’m not going to understand things just because I’m a little kid.  And it can be frustrating.  Cause, like, I really want to know stuff.  Or even when they do talk to me about things, they’ll always try to ‘tone it down to my level.’  They especially avoid the heavy themes like sex and death and cannibalism and stuff.  But that’s stuff I want to talk about.  I’m really fascinated by the Donner Party.  The entire expedition, really.  What did it feel like to eat people that you knew?  I’m also fascinated by how the human mind deals with death.  It’s like people shut down the idea of death completely, and insist that heaven and hell are places after death.  But death is death.  And everyone after death is dead, because consciousness is just your brain.  And even if there is evidence of life after death, it’s difficult to assess.  We’re going to be incredibly biased toward any information that suggests there’s something more.  Because we are so desperate to believe it.”

“I just hope the impending disaster that kills everyone happens...

“I just hope the impending disaster that kills everyone happens after I die.”

“I spent thirty-six years as an editor at the New York Times....

“I spent thirty-six years as an editor at the New York Times.  There were so many rounds of layoffs, and so many buyout opportunities,  but I kept turning them down.  I was terrified of retirement.  I never wanted to ‘retire.’  The word sounded terrible to me.  It meant going to Florida and dying.  It meant sitting in a chair and watching daytime TV.  It meant not working anymore.  Not thinking anymore.  Nothing but play and relaxation.  And that wasn’t enough for me.  That’s not living.  You always need to have a goal.  Grandchildren are great, but they’re not enough.  You need something to wake up your brain.  A reason to focus.  A reason to get out of bed and use everything that you’ve ever learned.  I’ll never see myself as retired.  Right now I’m trying to become a fiction writer.  I love it because my brain is always working.  Some days I think about my work so much, that when I finally sit down to write, it just comes pouring out my fingers.  I’d love to finish a book one day.  Something that people enjoy.  And I’d love to have it published.  Maybe a hardcover from Random House.  That gets optioned for a movie.  And wins an Oscar.  Oh it’s exciting, isn’t it?  I could go on and on.”

“I’m the smallest one in my grade I think I might be only three...

“I’m the smallest one in my grade  I think I might be only three feet tall but I’m not very good at feet.  A lot of times people think I’m younger than I am.  Sometimes I say ‘hi,’ and they’re like: ‘you can talk?’  But that mostly just happened one time at my old school.  One boy in my grade is almost Mommy’s size, and he’s only six.  Mommy is seven feet tall, probably.  I think I might grow a little taller than Mommy.  Because she’s staying this size.  Mommy might grow, but not taller.”