Rewind to 2015. Adele had resurfaced with “Hello.” Prince was still among the living and no one knew that Beyoncé had a thing for “Lemonade.” And this very blog had reached roughly 40 posts, had regular comments and subscribers, and was finally beginning to take shape. Things were good. That is until the internet showed up and decided to play.

I’d come to write a post one day and BAM… porno. No I don’t mean I wandered into a random porn site. I mean that porno found its way here. Of course, being a photographer, I panicked. What would people think? “Jay shoots porn now!” “I didn’t come here for this!” “Hey I know that girl!” (it happens). At the time I looked at all of my hard work, thought for an instant that I could salvage it, realized that I’d have to clean hundreds of lines of code and would never really be sure that it was totally gone and decided… “Eff it.” I deleted it. Full on, napalm bomb, mass destruction, executive order terminated the blog that once was. And then…

I went about my life. I designed things. I did photo-shoots. I posted on social media (mainly to facebook). Full disclosure: I became more comfortable with the idea of not resisting against this defeat than I’d like to admit. My readers asked what happened and I told them. They said things like, “I’ll be ready to read more when you have it online.” I said things like, “Thanks! I’m working on it! It’s coming back soon!” They never knew that I was lying. I don’t think I knew either. Not then at least.

Towards the end of 2016 I started to have the urge again. The urge to communicate my experience as well as share my knowledge so as to help others in their experience. I was sitting in my living room monologuing to myself (I do this a lot actually) about fear and, most importantly; what it was that I was actually afraid of. I said to myself, “Self you’ve been preparing for months to do these great things. To do videos and podcasts. To produce shows and content that actually adds value to people’s lives. You aren’t going to fail at this.You are going to be a success. And that terrifies you.”

Cold. Hard. Smack in the FACE! From me! By me! And I caught me off guard. I recorded a video about it and with no one’s help at all  a much needed nudge from The Mrs. I shared it with my Facebook friends.

Here’s the truth. I loved watching the comments roll in while the views and shares went up. But what I loved most was that I actually did it. I said that I was going to do a thing, did the thing, and felt good about what I’d done. It was time do more things.

I’m starting this site with this first post for one reason: To have it as a reminder that you can survive losing it all. As a reminder that the end isn’t when the worst happens but when you decide to give up because the worst happened. So this is the first post of many posts to climb back up that mountain (or swim upstream if you are into a more nautical reference). What we are going to do here is learn. Together. I’ll share as I grow and I welcome you to do the same. Tell me when I’m doing a good job and call my on my bs because today we find are ourselves here….again...At the doorstep of something great!

Best,
JY DNL