If I had to sum up 2023 in a word, it would be “return”.
A major focus for me this year has been getting back to where I once was. This was an effort begun in 2021: rebuilding myself from the point of psychological, mental, financial and spiritual zero 2021 me inhabited was an undertaking I would have not thought possible had someone presented it to me on paper. A toxic relationship would lead to my sacrificing every shred of well-being I had to a man who would have no intention of becoming the husband I was preparing for, and after relocating, uprooting my life and changing everything, his departure would leave me at my lowest. Not only had I been co-dependent, requiring a whole healing effort in its own right, but now I was stuck in a farmhouse over 100 miles away from anything I had cultivated over the previous 20 years. With all my resources either stolen, destroyed or squandered, I had to rebuild everything in my life from scratch, as well as try to keep my fledgling business, TribeHerald, alive.
In the short-term, I would be successful at none of these: from a spiral into alcoholic relapse to a mid-life crisis, from near-catatonic depression to workaholism, the following six months would be one of the nadirs of my adult life. Were it not for my friends stepping in and helping with virtually every aspect of my life, I don’t know what kind of horrible state I’d be in today. Summer 2021 would see me put my stuff in my newly-purchased car, and head off to a point west as yet unknown.
While living in my car in 2021, I would discover Columbus.
It would be the diversity that captivated me.
I’d move to Ohio, begin dating again, move on to better jobs, and continue the process of rebuilding. My own personal techiyas ha’meisim – revival of the Dead – bringing myself back from a near absence of life, with only a handful of friends and my own resolve to power the resuscitation.
During all of this, TribeHerald would transform from being a group effort of like-minded Jews of Color to being my own personal project. Co-founders and collaborators would leave for various, often extremely valid, reasons, leaving me to handle the bills, the invoices, and all of the dirty work. Keeping TribeHerald alive during 2021 was extremely painful – and trying to get any sort of offline event off the ground was an almost Sisyphean exercise in futility, with mask mandates and guidelines set to change without notice. Meanwhile, I had to watch as my personal reputation would get dragged as people would consider Y-Love “unreliable” or unable to “follow through” individually on things which were originally planned by committee. 2020 me made plans that would be insurmountable tasks for 2021 me.
That, however, is all in the past. The present and future are already outshining their bygone counterpart.
The end of 2021 would see me accepting C-level and managerial positions, directing teams of developers with levels of responsibility that 2019 me would have floundered under the weight of. I would develop marketing and sales campaigns. I would contribute to product strategy and spearhead initiatives for one of the most widely-read crypto news outlets in the world. I would learn multiple new programming languages, learn to develop for Web3, learn to build IoT gadgets, and mint NFTs. And, on a personal level, 2021 would also see me return to recovery, and I would eventually breeze through the 1-year sober-versary I could never get past previously.
I resolved to travel as much in 2023 as I wanted to, after being held back from doing so by previous relationships. I began 2023 in Paris, then traveling to Firenze for the Pitti Immagine Uomo menswear expo. I would perform for multiple youth organizations and am now featured as part of an art exhibit at the Baltimore Area JCC. By raising my own profile (and not losing sight of the goal), I’ve managed to get close to the position I was at the beginning of 2020 – looking for collaborators, investors, and funding for TribeHerald again. Revising the business plans and projections. Getting new mentors and advisors.
I’ve technically been at this point for months now, but attending Web Summit 2023 in Lisbon solidified and amplified my drive and my resolve to get TribeHerald back off the ground, back to making an impact, back to telling stories of underserved, marginalized, and intersectional communities. Web Summit brought together startups and entrepreneurs from dozens of countries, all vying to help build the future of the Internet. I was inspired. I would hear business models and entrepreneur stories that would reawaken the same fire in me that I had when we started TribeHerald. Hearing founders’ stories that reminded me of where I was, seeing products that inspired me to go further.
While it would be quite lamentable if no collaborators were to join with me, the plans B that I’ve already created and additional products will undoubtedly create value. Even if the community I designed them for considers someone else a safer bet. And I’m also becoming accomplished as an AI/LLM developer in my own right — an industry I don’t see disappearing any time soon. And I’ll never un-know my background in advertising and marketing.
I’m currently battling with my email provider to get my email back online. I’m currently rewriting my business plan in order to be considered for European investment and potentially starting up in the Netherlands. This is where TribeHerald is, and where we’re headed: nothing is over, nothing has fallen off. And crucially, we’re still not even 12 months behind schedule yet.
Doing it all by my damn self, on two continents. While keeping my own lights on and trying to start a family.
Life speeds up: I’m trying to accelerate at the same rate. It’s a new day. And I’m here for it, against all odds.
