Hi Steemit,
Today isn't the best of days.
I don't know what happened to my friend. He abandoned his business, sent me all his crypto which was only a few hundred bucks, left his daughter, and I haven't heard from him since. I'm not feeling the greatest and feel a bit worried about him. I reached out to him last week because I do some work for him in which he hadn't paid me for for a couple of months so I was following up as I normally do. I've been so busy lately and even considered stopping my additional side job because it just isn't worth my time to chase people to get paid for the amount that it is. After 3-4 calls, he returned my call, briefly explained his situation and sent me all his crypto which I deducted my pay from the total and told him I could hold the rest for him (he's not the most tech saavy). I didn't know how bad the situation was and at this point I don't even want his money, would prefer to know he's okay physically and hopefully emotionally.
He's had a bad string of events in the last 5+ years. He successfully sold a small business for a million dollars and married a beautiful woman from what I'm told 5+ years back. He was semi. What worse here (he's an illegal immigrant or something) he was about to get his paperwork before the divorce happened. He started over with a new business. Found another good woman who supported him and made his next business very successful. His business partner sold off the business without him knowing and left with the money (he is an illegal immigrant and only had a handshake deal). Everyone knew of his work locally, so he was able to start over from the ground up and rebuild a business with the help of his new wife who officially owned the business. He built it back up to a very sizeable level within a year. Midway through that year, he lost all his savings as his new wife threatened to divorce, forced him to sell the house and most of his possessions. They reconciled later on that year, he borrowed some money during that time from some shady people to stay afloat. I met him during this time as he was getting back on his feet again.
He was doing well during this time working many long hours. I got to know him a bit better. It again turned for the worse. halfway through the year, he got into an argument with the new wife, she sold the house and all the furniture. Took his daughter to the Dominican Republic back where her family was at. He has to buy new furniture and borrow money to find a new place to stay. They later made up and moved back together until another fiasco happened. What I heard through the grapevine was at his businesses, some pedestrian was annoyed at how he was illegally leaving his merchandise outside (he moved his merchandise in and out to make room daily in his small shop as there wasn't enough space inside). They got into an argument, and it turned out to be a well connected individual politically or some gangster (never asked). That person spoke to his landlord and had him evicted by the end of the month. Right as he was finishing paying off the loan shark, he had to take out another loan to move to a new location as he was blackballed in this city. What's even worse was he opened up a second business that supplemented his existing business with another individual he had done business with. He didn't open it under his wife because of their on and off relationship together. The guy took the business from him because it was never in my friends name because he doesn't have paperwork.
This new location is a lot harder to make money. It's the suburbs and not the city. His clientele is also a lot further away and he lost many clients moving further away. He was being hounded by people all around for money. I tried to not get involved in all those things. His personal life with his wife also wasn't going well which i could tell but I didn't want to pry into another mans private family life. He was hopeful however, as his green card paperwork looked promising. He started making things better slowly by building up the business again and applying for a business loan to pay off the loan sharks.
I felt like it was just a matter of time till he was back on his feet and running again until he called me last week. He told me the wife was divorcing him, seemed a bit more serious this time but you can never tell because it's been bad many times prior. I asked him how business was doing and he said he didn't care. He said he was more worried about his own well being because he won't be able to stay in the country anymore. He sent me his crypto and told me to hold onto it for him. I told him to give me a ring if he wanted to grab some food or drinks. I didn't think it'd be this bad.
My brother showed up at his business today. It's abandoned. He's not responding to texts. Landlord said he has left the country. I messaged him on social media. Nothing. His last few posts show him drinking and in someone else's house sitting on the floor with the middle finger.
There's no one in my social circle who would care or understand what hitting rock bottom feels like and having no one around you to support you. People are getting married or busy making money in crypto. This isn't his first fall, so i'd like to hope he can handle the pain. Wishing the best for you, my friend. Life is just a test to see if you're worth of its rewards.
Apologies for leaving out his name and business details as I don't want anyone to be able to tie this information to him.
-AAA