Starting Over (Once Again)

More than just a tragically ironic lyric from John Lennon, 'starting over' has been a way of life for me.

This summary is meant for you to get to know me a little (and maybe I’ll get to know myself better, too). I’ll be expanding on some of the points below in future posts, but I thought this was a good way to say hello.

Where to Start?

There’s a like to unpack here because all of my life I’ve had this tendency to leap before looking into any situation. I’d like to feel I’ve made an art of it but more accurately I’ve stumbled more than anything. Whether that meant a job, a relationship or a hobby, I’d dive into the deep end of something only to quickly change my mind and find a new place to dive.

It’s a quality I somehow inherited from my father, which is both surprising and something I’m not proud to admit. You see, I never really knew my father. He left us when I was five, reappeared briefly when I was fourteen, and that was the last I’d really heard about him until he died forty four years later.

The one thing I knew was he never stuck around for long. I’d discover half siblings over the years and hear tales of his affairs. Following his passing not long ago, I found myself fascinated with a tale of his grandparents that made me rethink what I little I thought I knew. It was something I had started to post on other platforms recently and I’ll post about it here soon.

But for the purposes of this introduction, I’ll concentrate on a few important chapters of my own life. Here we go. It’s a bit wordy I know but I promise future posts will be more concise :0)

The World of Publishing

About thirty five plus years ago I was neck-deep in fanzine publishing. Circulating about ten thousand copies worldwide per quarter of a little handmade, physically cut and pasted, folded and stapled mailer called ‘Madcap Frontiers’ (that title is currently being reworked into a series of fiction which I’ll be sharing on Substack soon). It was mainly created to promote the music of my band at the time (Ya-Ne-Zniyoo), but also included stories, poetry, art and free classified ads for indie bands, artists, writers, etc. from all over the world. It was the inclusion of the free classifieds that mainly helped boost the circulation. A criterion for inclusion was the advertiser had to commit to receiving copies of the fanzine to circulate locally.

By the mid to late 90s, the cost of doing this was getting to be too much. So I jumped on this new bandwagon known as the internet. I eventually obtained the domain StephenBailey.com and proceeded to build a following of about a hundred thousand readers a month. I never really tried to make any money doing it as the experience (plus some design and coding courses) would lead me into comfortable employment in the publishing industry. By the year 2000, I started a series of steady gigs creating digital products for many well-known magazines in NYC (Woman’s Day, Car and Driver, Cosmo Girl, Esquire, Good Housekeeping, Men’s Fitness to name a few). I even coded the MySpace page for Seventeen :0)

All the while I continued to frequent the music and art scenes of the NYC/Hoboken area, creating content for my own and other lifestyle websites. I also had a fairly successful side career doing freelance work as a web designer.

And then, for reasons I still don’t fully understand myself, I gave that all up to try something new. Very new.

Switching Careers

In the Summer of 2011, I gave into the Hollywood cliche of leaving a solid corporate gig with a very decent six-figure salary and money in the bank to pursue an uncertain career in hospitality. You see it all the time in movies and on TV. A successful person leaves the hustle and bustle of their life to find themselves overwhelmed with the task of trying to save a small hotel or bar or restaurant. They meet the love of their life and live happily ever after.

D’s Soul Full Cafe, Hoboken NJ

In my case, it was a small, struggling cafe in Hoboken, NJ run by a friend of mine. Somehow I was sure I could make it a success, despite having zero experience in the food industry. And for the next twelve years, I struggled, stressed and strained to make it work. By all accounts, we thrived. We were one of the most popular cafes in town. Sales climbed every year. We won awards and accolades for our food, art shows and live music. We survived two floods, a fire, Covid and other countless other troubles along the way. I had an amazing staff, a great relationship with my landlord and we were a beloved part of the community. I met wonderful people and got involved in endeavors that I never would have otherwise. Still, I was never truly happy.

The years of stress took a toll on me physically and emotionally. I was working over 100 hours a week. I burned thru all of my savings and destroyed my credit. I hadn’t spent any time writing creatively for most of those years. I was seriously unhealthy, broke and I never did find the love of my life. So, in May of 2023, I made the decision to let it go. To walk away. To start over . . . once again.

Starting Over

When I walked away, many of my friends and neighbors were asking if I’d ever do it again. I was approached by more than one person to venture into other restaurants. However, I said I would give myself two years to get re-centered before making any decisions. I started driving for Amazon, DoorDash, Spark, and a few local businesses. After all, I had a small cargo van that I had been using for catering. I figured I might as well use it to make some money.

After about seven months, despite making a decent living, I was growing tired of the delivery life. I was still working long hours, dealing with hundreds of deliveries a day, the stress of customer demands and dispatch errors. Not to mention the wear and tear on my van (and my body). It was time to get a real job.

Then, in February of 2024, I started working at Trader Joe’s. That decision made me realize how much I missed waking up, going to work, being told what to do for eight hours and then going home. Plus, I now had nearly sixty extra hours per week to myself. The need for steady pay, routine, benefits, and personal downtime was something I had taken for granted all those years ago.

And Here We Are

That brings us more or less to now. I’m steadily rebuilding my credit, savings and 401k (although that’s a minefield I’m not enjoying at the moment). On paper, I’m making less money than I’ve made in decades, but more of it is ending up in my bank account now than in recent years because I’m not spending every penny on a business.

More importantly, it’s been two years. I’ve just about reached that point of re-centering I mentioned earlier. I’m healthier than I’ve been in a long time despite a scare back in September which sent me to the ER with what turned out to be a kidney stone and blood pressure so high the hospital staff kept asking how I hadn’t had a stroke yet (more on that later).

I’m rediscovering my curiosity. My urge to write, read and discover new things is coming back strong. I’ve finally started to enjoy cooking again now that I’m doing it for myself and not a crowd. I’m learning how to eat and live healthy. All the while concluding that running a business, especially a food business was never meant for me. One area that I need to work on is being social again. I’ve definitely fallen off that wagon and have lost touch with far too many friends and family over the years.

A New Creative Platform

The desire to start writing again has been strong during this re-centering. The disdain for social media has been equally strong. Trying to create something solely to grab attention while navigating the toxicity of algorithms and trolls is a strain that drains creativity. I recently lost access to my social media due to a claim of community standards abuse reported by someone that had no basis in truth. I was unable to fight it because chatbots and AI aren’t interested in the user's pleas (more on that in a future post).

After a couple of days of depression I realized that this too was an opportunity to start over. Trying to fight that toxicity of algorithms and trolls is not sustainable, nor is it good for any sense of creativity. I was turned on to Substack thru friends who, for one reason or another, found themselves at a similar creative crossroads. It’s a format that hearkens back to the early era of blogging and that appeals to me. Maybe that’s what I need to be inspired to write actual content rather than endless memes.

And so, I’m entering a new creative environment that feels similar to my old fanzine days. Can I rebuild myself to the point I was at years ago? Only time will tell, I guess. I will say this though — I’m looking forward to the challenge.

As I said, ‘staring over’ is more than an ironically tragic lyric from John Lennon, it’s a way of life. Hopefully the promise of that life holds a better outcome for me.

Join me on this journey. Let’s see what’s out there, together.

Cheers!
Stephen