Brandon Stanton's Blog, page 84

“It started when she was nine years old. The first thing I...

“It started when she was nine years old.  The first thing I remember is the arguing about food.  My parents would tell her to eat.  She’d say she wasn’t hungry.  There was weighing of the food.  My father would lose his temper, but she still wouldn’t eat.  Once he got so angry that he hit her.  From the age of ten to thirteen she went to a hospital in Barcelona.  Occasionally she’d come home to visit, but mostly I only heard from her through letters.  Nobody explained to me what was going on.  They only told me she was very sick.  I didn’t even hear the word ‘anorexia’ until several years later.  Things got even worse when she came home from the hospital.  The illness was even more ingrained.  She’s twenty-five now.  There have been periods where she seems to be getting better, but it always gets worse again.  It’s taken a toll on my parents.  Both of them look like they’re in their seventies.  My mom is on antidepressants.  The therapists have told them that the disease has gone on for so long now, that it will probably be lifelong.  Whenever I try to ask my sister about it, we always argue.  She gets frustrated.  She feels attacked.  So I’ve stopped trying.  It was only two months ago that she finally admitted having a problem.  We were walking home from a family dinner, and she told me everything started when she was nine years old.  She was meeting a group of friends at the mall.  And a group of boys started making fun of her.  She had a lot of freckles back then.  And bright red hair.  And maybe she was a little bit chubby.  But just the smallest bit.”  
(Madrid, Spain)

“We had a very difficult time back in Venezuela. There was no...

“We had a very difficult time back in Venezuela.  There was no going to school or visiting friends.  We couldn’t even go out on the street.  All the time I was telling her ‘no.’  ‘Can we go to the park?’  No.  ‘Can we go on a walk?’  No.  ‘Can we get some ice cream?’  No.  She couldn’t comprehend why she was being restricted.  I could only explain that the situation was very bad.  I was stressed because I wanted to give her a better life, but I had no options.  It was very difficult to get out.  It took a lot of planning, but we were finally able to move to Madrid.  We’ve been here since November.  It’s just us.  I’m separated from her father, so we’re all alone.  But I don’t feel alone.  Everyone has been very kind.  And I’m able to enjoy her more.  She’s more emotionally stable.  We’re bonding more.  I’m able to see her laughing, growing up, and free.  We don’t have to feel afraid.  We don’t have a curfew.  We don’t have to watch the clock.  Today we spent all day in the park, just laughing, and exploring, and breathing fresh air.”      
(Madrid, Spain)

“It wasn’t a secret. The first day we met I told her I was...

“It wasn’t a secret.  The first day we met I told her I was bisexual, and that I’d been with men and women my entire life.  At the time she shrugged it off.  And it wasn’t an issue for the first ten years of our marriage.  The relationship was perfectly loving and stable.  But then I don’t know, something happened.  It wasn’t a particular man.  I never cheated on her.  It was something abstract.  I just missed relationships with men.  So I told her.  I was honest.  But when I uttered that thing it was like a bomb went off.  She turned away her face like she’d been slapped very hard.  It caused her so much pain.  She lost a lot of weight.  We cried and cried and cried about it.  For three years we cried.  We’d meet at Starbucks every day and cry in front of everyone.  We didn’t live together after that.  And we were never sexual again.  But we were still intimate.  We still took a lot of naps together.  I always held her.  We’d go shopping and walk arm-in-arm.  She kept my last name and called me her gay husband.  Her health began to deteriorate in 2007.  It was a nerve disease.  She lost her hearing.  Then her sight.  And I took care of her.  She always told me to forget about her.  To go out there and find a good guy.  But I stayed by her side.  We’d never officially gotten divorced, which helped in the end.  They let me in the hospital room as her husband.  I wasn’t allowed to touch her, but I was right next to her as she died, breathing with her.  It’s been two years now.  I’ll move away soon.  There’s nothing left in this city for me.  But first I’m going to have a ceremony in Central Park, and give an envelope of her ashes to everyone who loved her.  I don’t know whether to call her my wife.  It’s not important to me.  Alexandra was the love of my life.”

“I go to Miami every weekend to see my cats, Woody and Zoey....

“I go to Miami every weekend to see my cats, Woody and Zoey. They live with my mother. I take the bus to wherever I can get the cheapest flight. Sometimes that’s Detroit. Sometimes Philadelphia. This week it was New York. The travel is exhausting but it’s cheaper than getting a pet friendly apartment. It was supposed to be a temporary situation, but I’ve been making the trip for about five years now. They rely on me. They’re like my kids.  And they’re getting old. I don’t know why I’m so attached. I get that way. Grey’s Anatomy has been dumb for the past twelve seasons but I still watch every week and cry. I could find the cats a new home, but how do you find the right person? Every amazing person already has eight cats. Anyway, my sister told me never to talk about my cats unless people ask. But you asked. Can we talk about my kidney instead? Last year I donated a kidney.”

“I had the usual anxieties when I was younger. Making...

“I had the usual anxieties when I was younger.  Making good grades.  Keeping my parents happy.  So there were elements of my personality that were drawn to being a rabbi.  I thought it would give me a platform to guide people and make them happy.  Pleasing people in exchange for adoration was a very convenient arrangement for me.  But I forgot that if you’re in a position to please people, you’re also in a position to disappoint.  In many ways the rabbi is a symbol.  People see you as a symbol of how God thinks.  Or feels towards them.  Or acts toward them.  And that’s a lot of pressure.  There’s pressure to be fully present for everyone, even at the supermarket or Sunday soccer games.  You always want to give comfort.  Or a thoughtful response. Or at the very least your undivided attention.  And that can be exhausting.  Especially in the age of the iPhone.  I had a wild dream one night that all eight hundred families at my synagogue were lined up outside my office.  And everyone needed me at the exact same time.”

“I wouldn’t be here if my roommate hadn’t been possessed by a...

“I wouldn’t be here if my roommate hadn’t been possessed by a demon.  It all started one night when our upstairs neighbor tried to commit suicide by cutting open his chest.  I knew then something dark was going on.  But my roommate seemed fine.  He was a volunteer firefighter.  I lived with him for six years.  No problems.  Then one night he comes home with a new tattoo.  It was a picture of the devil having sex with a gagged girl.  He’s like: ‘Isn’t this cool?’  And I’m like: ‘No, man.  That’s not cool.’  Then at 4:30 the next morning I woke up to screaming.  I ran out of my bedroom and found him thrashing around in the kitchen.  He was slamming into cupboards and knocking over dishes.  The whole time he’s screaming: ‘He’s mine!  He’s mine!’  I knew he owned a gun so I locked myself in the bedroom.  The next morning he didn’t remember a thing, but I wasn’t taking any chances.  I moved out that day.  It felt like a good time to finally move to New York and follow my dreams.”

“Even if you’re on a boat you don’t have to be scared of waves...

“Even if you’re on a boat you don’t have to be scared of waves because they’re just big pieces of water that come together when gravity falls down from the moon and into the water.  Gravity is all over the moon.  It’s in the bottom of the craters and astronauts can bring it back in rockets.  You don’t even have to put it in a bucket.  It just sort of follows you.  But there’s no gravity in outer space.  If I went to outer space I’d visit to a planet that’s a summer planet, where the aliens are swimming and drinking milkshakes and stuff.  That’s because summer is my favorite season.  I know all this stuff because I do science class.”

(4/4) “It feels like Miles has been home forever. He’s four...

(4/4)  “It feels like Miles has been home forever.  He’s four years old now.  He runs to me every time I open the door.  He wants to play non-stop.  He’s the master of high-fives.  He’s the master of hugging the dog.  He’s also the master of needing attention while you’re on the phone.  Or when you just want to relax and watch TV for a second.  But it always goes from frustrating to heartwarming in a second.  Even though he can’t express himself, he’s amazingly empathetic.  He’s drawn to people who look alone.    There are meltdowns.  And there are days when I feel like I’m not qualified for any of this.  But on the days you don’t think you can get through it, you don’t realize that you’re getting through it.  And in the end, you’re getting more than you ever give.  Recently my wife started sending me pictures of other children, but I always said ‘no.’  Until I saw Mile’s little sister for the first time.  She’s from the same orphanage.  Her name is Maddie.  We submitted our papers three weeks ago.”
(Photo Courtesy of Snyder Family)

(¾) “We were extremely lucky. We completed the entire...

(¾)  “We were extremely lucky.  We completed the entire process in fourteen months and travelled to Taiwan on January 21st of 2017.  The next morning we went straight to the orphanage.  We sat in a waiting room on the ground floor, and after ten minutes they brought Miles around the corner.  My wife dropped to her knees and hugged him like she’d never let him go.  And of course that broke me down.  I’m thinking ‘Oh my God, this is my boy.’  But when I went to pick him up, he started crying.  I’m telling him: ‘No, no, no!  I’m Baba, I’m Baba.’  But he didn’t want me touching him.  I went from the top of the world to the darkest valley.  I tried playing with him.  I tried getting him a Happy Meal.  But he didn’t want any of it.  Nothing was going right.  I felt so rejected.  This went on for two days.  Then on the third day we were sitting in our hotel room, and my wife left us alone while she took a shower.  And all of the sudden this little boy started looking at me.  And he had the biggest smile on his face.”
(Special Olympics World Games, Abu Dhabi,

(2/4) “The application process was a nightmare. It’s like a...

(2/4)  “The application process was a nightmare.  It’s like a messy divorce where they examine every little detail of your life.  People try to scare the crap out of you about how emotionally damaged the kid will be.  The agency made us sign a contract acknowledging fourteen ways the adoption could fall through, and there weren’t any refunds.  They warned it could take two years.  And it’s so expensive, $32,000.  But at that point Miles’ picture was hanging all over our house.  We talked about him all the time.  He was already our son, but he was sitting in an orphanage.  We needed to get him home as quickly as possible.  I took out a loan against my retirement.  I racked up so much credit card debt.  I planned on using the reward points to buy his plane ticket home.  Miles spent his second birthday at the orphanage.  We filled a box with $300 worth of presents.  It cost even more to ship.  Inside we put his very first pair of walking shoes.  Hip-hugger pants to help with his posture.  A t-shirt that said: ‘Someone in Fairfax, VA loves me.’  And Mickey Mouse party favors for all the kids at the orphanage.  Then we ordered him a cake from a local bakery.  A few weeks later, the orphanage sent us a picture from the party.”  
(Special Olympics World Games, Abu Dhabi, UAE)