Mar 31, 20224 min read

Starting New Chapters

Life happens in so many phases! I can't tell you the last time I sat at a keyboard to type an actual blog. To be so inspired to pen an actual thought for my readers to consume. With IG Lives and TikToks, my world transformed and evolved into video streams and live virtual audiences. However, there's something nostalgic about starting this website and beginning anew. Getting back to the basics. To the words that capture us and cause for us to sit for a moment and ponder. Returning to the art of sharing an opinion that can change perspective and incite conversation. Albeit, the biggest question right now is: Where do I even begin...

It's March of 2022 and I'm sitting in a new position at work, just finished the first season of The Danyol Jaye Show, currently working on my long awaited EP, and still twiddling away at this autobiographical book that I've been working on since...well, that's not important! Just know, I'm still working on it LOL! Yet and still, there has been major losses, exponential changes, and a plethora of emotions to navigate through.

Let's address the obvious: A whole pandemic rested upon the world! A virus so rampant that it was the cause of hundreds of thousands of deaths throughout the globe. 2020 was a year that none of us expected. We were forced to live in a way none of us were accustomed to. It was the quarantine year. The year where the outside world became as foreign to us as living on another planet in an entirely different galaxy. Albeit, many of us made it through; many of us did not. Unfortunately, 2021 was no better for me. I started the first month of the year losing 2 family members and 1 friend. A few months later, I lost another friend and a coworker/friend. Then a few months after that, I lost my aunt. Needless to say, death and mourning was the theme that year. One right after the other with no time to catch my breath and process the last death before bracing myself for the next one.

In June of 2021, my living situation changed due to circumstances beyond my control. I ended up packing my things and moving to Victorville to live with a friend. Six months in the High Desert, driving 2 hours (each way) back and forth to work in a borrowed vehicle, and over $4000 in gas later, life had changed yet again. I had a safe space to call home for the time being but the toll on my body making that drive five (sometimes six) days a week was absolutely no joke.

In the latter half of 2021, while scrolling through Twitter, I see a news article of a man who had overdosed and died at a party. The man wore a face that I knew too well, attached to a name I didn't know at all. It was the face of someone that I had been in an intimate/sexual situationship with, on and off, for the last two and half years. Unbeknownst to me, he had an entire life in entertainment I knew nothing about. I found that we knew a lot of the same people. Frequented a lot of the same arenas, but no one ever knew that he and I had something going on. I certainly didn't know he was who he was in the industry. I simply knew him as David. The man who would call me or text me to check up on me. The man who would drive to my house just to spend hours talking in his car. The man who kissed me as gentle as the wind caresses a cheek on a sunny spring day. The man who made love to me in some of the most magnificent ways.

Also, the man who had no reason to lie about who he was, but did just that. The man who should have known that I would never expose him or bring to him any harm. The man who made the choice for me that I would have to mourn his death alone and in silence. It was hard. It was cruel and although I understood the pathology of being on the down low, it was unnecessary with me. I gave him all the safe space he needed to be all of who he wanted or needed to be in my presnence and STILL, he was too frightened to trust me. Alas, life's change is inevitable. Its ways and its reasons are no more mine to control than the weather...and so, I pressed on.

By the time December 2021 came, my Victorville friend had a new beaux, a new outlook on life, and a gleam in his romantic eye. Upon his request to explore this new love, I was asked to move out. It was time for me to leave and venture back to Los Angeles.

With Black History Month in full effect, I was back in Los Angeles within 30 days, in a new studio apartment, ready to reacclimate myself to city living. I no longer had a four drive (round trip) from work, but I also no longer had a car lol. It was back to Ubers and public transportation. Back to noisy streets and rude pedestrians. Back to impromptu nights out and that reminder that I'm no longer in my 20's and midnight is definitely when this boy turns back into a pumpkin.

At present, I am rebuilding the cornerstones of who Danyol Jaye is and remembering that I have all I need to get to where I want to get to. I am no Oprah Winfrey, I'm no Marc Lamont Hill, I'm not even your resident Lady Whistledown, but I do have a voice! I do have a little something to say about the things going on in the world and people tend to listen. Right here, in the way that I choose to do it...is where you can find me. I'll write my minds thoughts, my hearts desires, and my lived experience. I'll write things that many people will not agree with. Things that some may feel I shouldn't have. Albeit, it will be honest, it will be the truth as I know it to be, and it shall all be right here! Welcome to DanyolJayeDotCom!

Cover Photo courtesy of Danyol Jaye Inlay Photo courtesy of TMZ Inlay Photo courtesy of Danyol Jaye