Brandon Stanton's Blog, page 74

“I hardly know anything about him. Never seen a picture or...

“I hardly know anything about him.  Never seen a picture or anything.  He was my mom’s Samba teacher.  His name was Benjamin.  He was Brazilian.  He had dreads.  Long dreads.  But that’s all I know.  My mom promised me that she’d tell me his last name when I turned eighteen, but I’m twenty now.  And I still don’t know.  I think part of her doesn’t want me to know.  He abandoned her when she was pregnant with twins.  And she’s a really proud woman.  She has like five degrees.  She’s at the top of her field.  Mother Theresa even gave her a medal for her philanthropy.  My father caused her a lot of trauma, and ever since then her life has been about moving forward.   And I don’t want to make her go back.  I don’t want to  dig up the past.  But he’s where I got my love of dancing.  And my skin.  And my hair.  As much as she tries, my mom can’t relate to being a black woman.  She can empathize, but she can’t relate.  All my relatives were white.  Almost all my classmates were white.  I’d get asked if I was adopted, and I’d repeat the same story: ‘I don’t know my dad.  I don’t know that side of me.’  Maybe ignorance is bliss.  Maybe I’ll just be disappointed.  But I’d love to know what talents came from him.  What features.  What qualities.  I just don’t know how to ask about the other part of me, without my mom feeling that her part isn’t enough.”

“There’s too much negative energy out there. Slouched...

“There’s too much negative energy out there.  Slouched shoulders.  Puppy eyes.  Excessive exhales.  Too many people with fixable problems that they don’t want to fix.  For some reason people love to identify themselves by their problems.  They just don’t know who they are without some major issue.  They love to say ‘I cant.’  Or: ‘If I was this, then I could be that.’  Or ‘I’ll always be this way because of xyz.’  But that kind of thinking never ends.  You’ll always have another box you can check.  You can always qualify for victimhood.  There’s always a reason to opt out of self-responsibility.  Because God forbid the problem is you.  It’s toxic thinking.  I can’t be around it.  It’s too draining.  I’m trying to grow.  I’m trying to be great.  I’m trying to be thankful for all that I have.  So when I feel negative energy, I’m looking for an exit strategy.  I’m not going to give up on you right away.  I’m going to speak my truth.  But if you have no interest in helping yourself, I’m out.”

“I was an outcast. I was the fucking kid at lunch that didn’t...

“I was an outcast.  I was the fucking kid at lunch that didn’t know what table he was going to sit at every day.  Everyone else had signatures in their yearbook, and nice little notes from all their friends.  But my book was always empty.  The only person who signed it was the guidance counselor.  After that I was like fuck everyone.  Nobody gives a shit how I feel.  So I’m going to make other people feel the same way.  I started doing all kinds of fucked up shit.  I threw bricks at cars.  Spit on people.  Robbed younger kids.  I hated myself.  By the time I was twenty I was fucking suicidal.  No friends.  No family bonds.  I just didn’t feel required in this world.  That’s when I met Crystal.  I just saw her picture on Instagram to be honest.  I wanted to get with her.  But soon I realized this girl was different.  She actually cared about people.  She cared about the whole world.  She was like my opposite, but she never judged me.  She just listened to me.  She made me feel like I was fine.  That’s why I call her my light.  She’s the light that shined upon my darkness.  She taught me so much.  When she gets pissed off, or sad, she just deals with it alone.  She’s strong like that.  She doesn’t project it on other people like I did.  She’s the first person that made me sit down and think about how I affect the people around me.  We’ve been together for seven years now.  We make music together.  And I’m in a much better place.  If I’m feeling negative energy, I just put it into our music.  Maybe if there’s some kid out there who has it worse than I do, and he hears this stuff, I could be like the friend he never had.”

“Maybe it was Chinese culture. Maybe it was just her...

“Maybe it was Chinese culture.  Maybe it was just her insecurities.  But my mother loved when I was praised.  If I did well in school, she’d want to know exactly what the teachers said about me. She’d ask me to remember their precise words.  And when I told her, she’d ask: ‘What do you think they meant by that?’  It brought her joy to hear these things.  She had the best of intentions.  But she was training me to fixate on the opinions of others.  To analyze every word.  To play them over and over in my mind.  There was one question she particularly loved to ask: ‘Are you being included?’  It sounds even simpler in Chinese.  It literally means: ‘Did it have you?’  I heard that question so many times that it became cement.  It became my own self-talk.  And I still hear it all the time.  I hear it at work.  I hear it when I wake up at 5 AM, and I can’t get back to sleep, because I’m worrying if I accidentally upset my boss.  And it’s not just my mother’s words that I hear.  It’s her tone.  It’s her voice.”

“Clammy hands. I’ve always had clammy hands. Can’t help it....

“Clammy hands.  I’ve always had clammy hands.  Can’t help it.  It’s a medical condition. You could be the nicest person in the world, but the moment you feel these wet hands, you’re going to make a face.  People always ask if I’m nervous.  Women wipe their hands on their jeans after meeting me.  High school was brutal.  It was like walking around with permanent peed pants.  My boys wouldn’t let it die.  Now I’m the assistant director at a middle school, and those eighth graders have a lot of jokes.  They spend a lot of time on the internet so they know some gross shit.   But I try to turn it into a teachable moment.  I tell them that I never let the hand thing hold me back.  Never let it steal my thunder.  Never got shots.  Never got Botox.  Don’t even use the organic chemicals that my sister got me.  I’m the wet hands man.  It’s my superpower.  Ever need to lick your finger to open a zip lock bag?  Don’t worry about it.  Just give it to me.”

“My house is full of creatures. Every time my daughter visits...

“My house is full of creatures.  Every time my daughter visits her grandmother, she comes home with an animal.  We’ve got four turtles, a hermit crab, a chinchilla, a goldfish, and a French Bulldog.  She even tried to bring home one of those crazy-eyed dogs from Men In Black, but I sent that one back to the store.  My girlfriend tells me that I’m too much of a pushover.  But I’ve always been super close to my daughter.  Even when she was a baby, I was the one feeding her.  She’d follow me wherever I go.  She’d talk to me.  She’d tell me about her friends and little kid drama.  I loved all of it.  But now she’s twelve and I don’t get much of that anymore.  Things are changing.  She just tells me that her day was ‘OK.’  She’s hiding school reports from me.  She’s telling little lies.  Three weeks ago it was my birthday, and all of us were supposed to go eat at the seaport.  But my daughter tells me that she’s not feeling well.  ‘I’m tired,’ she says.  So I think: ‘Okay, maybe she’s getting her period,’ and I let her stay home.  Then halfway to the restaurant, I realized that I forgot my ID.  So I turned back.  And when the elevator door opened, I see my daughter in the hallway with some boy.  She’s wearing a nice dress.  She’s got on make-up, fake eye lashes, everything.  She was wearing SpongeBob pajamas when I left!”

“My dad’s family were some of the first evangelicals in...

“My dad’s family were some of the first evangelicals in Cameroon, so my parents are extremely religious.  They don’t seem to realize that we’re living in a different time.  And Canada is a different world.  They’re always keeping an eye on me: wherever I go, whatever I do, whatever I post.  I’m hiding so many things from them that I can’t keep track.  I can’t tell them about my job.  I can’t tell them about my white boyfriend.  I can’t even show my Mom the tattoo I got of her name.  She’s the biggest victim of her own beliefs.  She lets my father control her.  He doesn’t want her to learn how to drive.  He doesn’t want her to manage her own finances.  Even though she’s a nurse and makes plenty of money, she can’t touch any of it.  She’s almost fifty years old but has to ask permission to buy an expensive bra.   And he’s been cheating on her for six years.  I’m the one who found out.  He took my phone away while I was talking to friends, so I took his phone while he was in the shower.  He had a second email address that he uses to talk to women.  I showed my mother and she got really angry, but did nothing.  She’s afraid to confront him.  She doesn’t believe it’s her place.  I tell her all the time to stand up for herself.  Then she tells me to tone down my personality, or nobody will want to marry me.”
(Montreal, Canada)

“It was an easy job. You could do it drunk if you were clever....

“It was an easy job.  You could do it drunk if you were clever.  But I just got tired of the routine.  I’d spend all day drinking, smoking, and practicing with my band, then I’d freshen up and go wait tables in the evening.  I felt like a zombie.  Like I was going nowhere.  Then one day I asked the boss for two weeks off, and he said ‘no.’  So I quit right there.  I left everything behind.  I took my motorcycle and drove to a new town.  It felt like I was finally getting somewhere.  Like I’d broken out of my prison.  Like I was progressing.  But I couldn’t escape myself.  I had no opportunities.  No skills other than music.  I tried telemarketing for awhile, but I’m not that kind of person.  So my life fell apart.  I got evicted.  I ended up in a tiny apartment.  I isolated myself.  I’d broken away from all of my chains, and I thought that would make me happy.   But I realized that some of those chains I liked.  It’s nice to make money.  It’s nice to be trusted by other people.  It’s nice to be responsible for my own life.  Those chains were the proof that I could take care of myself.  And when I lost them, I got scared.    I fell apart.  It took a long time to pull myself back together, but things are better now.  I’ve got a therapist.  I’m working as a bartender.  I have a great girlfriend, a nice apartment, and my own parking spot.  I’m almost back to the place I ran away from.”
(Montreal, Canada)

“I’ve always had a problem with language. I didn’t even talk...

“I’ve always had a problem with language.  I didn’t even talk until the age of four.  I’ve had to see a therapist my entire life.  And even now, people don’t understand me when I speak.  Growing up was very difficult.  It didn’t help that I was already shy.  I was so timid.  I had so many complexes.  And my problem just made everything worse.  People didn’t include me in things.  I had very few friends.  All I did were solitary things: read, watch TV, look out the window.  My grades suffered, and my parents were so disappointed.  They wanted me to go to university and get a real job.  They were Haitian.  They knew poverty.  And they didn’t want the same thing to happen to their kids.  Now I’m working in a hotel as a cleaning lady.  I feel like I’m invisible.  Like nobody sees me.  I’m so scared of disappearing.  If it wasn’t for my family, nobody would even know I exist.  It’s like I’m just dust in life.  My father says I’m good for nothing.  I’ve heard it so many times that I carry it inside of me.  And one day it’s going to come out.  Sometimes I want to scream.  I want to explode.  I want people to feel that I’m here.”
(Montreal, Canada)

“My parents didn’t know any better. They just bought the food...

“My parents didn’t know any better.  They just bought the food that they saw in the market: the cereals, the cookies, the canned foods.  And I didn’t know any better either.  I was just a kid.  I ate the food that I saw in my house.  There were words on the label that I didn’t understand: added this, added that, chemicals to make it last longer, chemicals to make it cheaper, chemicals to make it thicker, chemicals to hold everything together.  But I didn’t question any of it.  Because they used kids in the advertisements.  I always saw other kids eating the food and promoting it.  The government wasn’t helping.  With their pyramids and their charts that everyone follows.  It all seemed OK.  But it was all junk and sugar.  Now my mom and dad and brother have diabetes.  I have fibroids and stuff like that.  Recently they took out my thyroid because it was showing signs of cancer.  I’m starting to think that it’s all linked.  They sell us poison so they can sell us pills.  I’m trying to eat better now.  I’m trying to learn.  But the more I learn, the less I know where to go.  I know that everything in the aisles is killer.  But even the fruits and vegetables have chemicals.  If I wanted to be completely sure, I’d have to have my own farm.  It’s just not possible.”
(Montreal, Canada)