When the Answer Is No, But the Dream Is Still Yes
Today I opened an email I wished would say something different, and one I’ve been waiting on for 4 months.
It was short and clinical, you know, the kind of message that should feel easy enough to swallow, but somehow sinks its teeth a little deeper than reality warrants. I got a “not invited,” a “not this time,” message, a little reminder that the world of grants and innovation is made of doors that don’t always open on the first knock.
For a moment, I’ll be honest, it hurt. I cried for a minute or two in bed when I read it.
It didn’t hurt because I thought one email could define me, or because I believed a single decision from a federal agency could rewrite the value of what I’m building. It hurt because I’ve poured myself into Blockchain Botany for well over a year now, the idea, the entire world full of lore, the learning system, the dream of making blockchain feel human and playful and accessible for the people who’ve been shut out of it.
It hurt because I care, and sometimes caring makes rejection feel sharper.
After the sting settled, something steadier stepped in. I’ve been rejected my entire career. Being a sommelier is the same as being told “you’re not good enough,” every time you try to take a test and fail. It’s a truth I’ve learned from years of studying wine, writing, building, falling down, and rebuilding again: rejection is literally just information to learn from, not prophecy.
The NSF didn’t say my project wasn’t good enough, they said it wasn’t the right category for their very specific mission. As someone who waited about four months for that information, it took me a minute to let that sink in, this wasn’t a value judgment, it was a misalignment. Not that their judgement even truly matters, because it doesn’t.
Blockchain Botany isn’t a chemistry experiment or a physics breakthrough, it’s an education tool, a bridge between everyday people and the intimidating world of cryptocurrency. It teaches, guides, demystifies, and grows alongside the player, like a little digital greenhouse of knowledge, and that means the right home for it isn’t NSF.
It’s the Department of Education or it’s IES SBIR, maybe it’s foundations that care about learning. It’s blockchain ecosystems that want to fund Web3 literacy and every organization that believes education shouldn’t be locked behind tech jargon and gatekeeping. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been taken advantage of in my life because I didn’t fully understand something and that fact was exploited. I know I’m not alone in this either. I’ve been a dreamer for a long while, and for an even longer time, people have taken advantage of the fact that I want to build something but don’t yet know how. Blockchain Botany was to prevent others, like me, who’ve had their hard earned money taken from them, from falling into scams.
So here’s what I’m choosing today: I’m choosing to feel the disappointment briefly, because pretending I’m made of stone helps no one. I’ve always had a rule in life that I can feel sorry for myself for 24 hours. I can eat a ton of chocolate and wallow in self-pity, but that’s how long I’m allowed to do that. After 24 hours, it’s time to brush myself off and try again. My usual motto has saved me more times that you could believe.
So here I am, I’m choosing to keep building anyway, even if the path curves in a direction I didn’t expect. I believe in my project the same way I believe in the words I write late at night, the way I believe in tomatoes growing under LED lights, and the way I believe that sometimes our timelines are slower because the foundation needs more time to strengthen. Everything works itself out the longer you try for it.
The truth is, I’ve built too much momentum to stop. My blog is growing, my writing is getting better each day, my projects and dreams are expanding, and my vision hasn’t dimmed, if anything, today made it clearer.
Blockchain Botany will grow, and maybe not through NSF, not on the timeline I imagined (I’m always bad with time anyway), but everything about this journey has taught me that persistence is a kind of magic that we’ve all been given but rarely use. Doors open for people who keep showing up with something worth building, and I’m not done building.
If anything, today is just another seed.
