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Today I am at work at the club. I haven’t written in…. Wow, I can’t remember the last time, way too long. Although I haven’t written most things have been the same with the exception of things at work. Now I did say “most” things…. Most things like Apt #1 still not finished. The guy working on my apartment is still making even less time to help me.  And my enigma went AWOL again. last I heard he is doing coyote work. But who knows if that is really true. As for work at the club, I now am being made to feel like every night at work that my job is hanging by a string. I never know if I will have a job to pay my bills for each coming week. Totally not a good feeling. But enough about the club. I already don’t get enough sleep because of that shit. But now back to everything else……. Ah yes… My workers… not around,  my apt #1 still not rented. My other properties, still sitting there, 99% of my dreams still not accomplished. My bills still there and being paid off slower than the ability for America to stop its racism. My mindset…… self inflicted beatings on a daily basis. But I have been trying to not stay in that mindset. Each day is an over arching battle to believe that I can move the goal post no matter what it’s cemented in. I am not even sure if it is working. I’m so deep in it that I can’t even see outside of me. Whenever I get road blocked by someone, something, or life, I try to pivot to something else that can get done. It’s not like my life isn’t without something to do. It’s just my current setback of being able to properly stay focused, properly knowing how to pivot when something can’t be accomplished on a particular day or moment, And especially knowing what to pivot on is the hardest task. How do I extract the most out of each event, out of each moment. How do I live life to the fullest, the whole time while battling my enemies and my challenges. Painfully I think this is something that all humans deal with, but for those that come from poverty, surroundings of negativity and also a lack of positive mentors, these things or lack of things allow a habit of self destruction to form. And painfully it may take me a lifetime to deconstruct. But somehow I will, I have no choice. Its’ just getting so much harder as the older I get. I have been trying to find signs of anything that will show me not to believe the darkness that I see and instead to look only at what I expect to see in my life. It’s just not easy. Not yet.

I went skydiving last week. Oddly enough it was very much needed. Why was it needed? Good question. It allowed me to be around different people, people that look at life in a more positive way. And also for some reason my skydives were pretty good. I hadn’t skydived in about 2 months but I was able to retain pretty good body position and 2 of my 3 landings were descent and I even had a landing in the peas (landing in the peas means a particular spot that every skydiver tries to land in).

Today I went to a funeral. For a man named James Noel Higden. Sadly I barely knew him. I know him because of the Mason dinners that I go to on Wednesdays. Sadly I only talked to him a few times and the last time that I saw him was about 2 weeks ago and he was his usual busy self. He is a man that always looked in relative good health and constantly moving. (Which constantly moving is a good sign) But I found out this Wednesday that he passed. It was a real shocker to me, especially how a flu could cause such a demise. Later that Wednesday night we all sat around and talked about his life. And I got to learn how amazing this man was. In many regards he is the epitome of many things I hope to accomplish. His willingness, persistence, and ability to make so much time to meet, help and enjoy time with so many people is amazing. I could say more about his life thru all the beautiful stories that were told about him, but because I barely knew him, I rather not. I feel it more important to come from those that interacted with him on a regular basis.

Although what I will say is this…. this is the first time that I went to a funeral and came out really happy.  You see earlier that day I was mentally struggling. Work here at the club has been super stressful and has no signs of becoming less stressful and my properties feel like they are glued in their positions forever. So I feel very chained and mentally beaten, but after hearing everything about James just seemed to inspire me. Just hearing his accomplishments, hearing the interactions he had just made me feel good on the inside. I can only assume that when people say “he lives on” that this is what they mean. Even though I did not get the opportunity to intimately become his friend, its the way that he was able to touch other peoples lives in such a positive way that gives me guidance, love, and hope that I too can in at least in a small way get to touch the greatness that he was able to accomplish. And so as I walked out of the church today I felt something… I can’t exactly explain it, but what I can say is that I wasn’t so stressed, I wasn’t seeing the rain that has been dripping on me. I wasn’t seeing the negative person that I deal with at work. Instead I saw possibilities, I saw that I wasn’t alone, somehow I saw that if I can accomplish at least one good thing in life then I might be able to make James smile. Because he is an inspiration to me, and because of that, if I can do something good then it is because he had a small part to play it it happening.

Thank you James.

Love,

Max.