Christmas Special 2020: Bright Side Of Life

 Bright Side Of Life

I'm not going to lie; I had high hopes for Christmas and New Years this year. And while my New Years plans still seem to be intact, Christmas was not what I was expecting. My "sisters", August and Arden planned to come back from Pittsburgh and Colorado on Christmas Eve. I planned to spend as much time as possible with them since I've only seen August once since she moved, and I haven't seen Arden since early fall.

Every year we get together with Mom's side of the family to make my great grandma's Christmas cookie recipe. Because of the virus, the group was a lot smaller this year. We made our cookies the Sunday before Christmas, and we were all ready to enjoy the holiday. Unfortunately, 2020 did what 2020 does.

On the Monday before Christmas, I woke up only a few minutes before Mom left for work. I went downstairs, said goodbye to her, and started working on some final edits for the book I'm planning to publish next year. My brothers Luke and Josh came home around 3:00. Now the family nicknames for Luke and Josh are "Heckle and Jeckle" because they cause shenanigans. Knowing that I couldn't get any work done with them around, I retreated to my room. Around 5 p.m. I got a call from Kid, who asked me to come over. I went over to the house and spent the rest of the night with Kid, her parents, and Aspen. The next morning I went to Kroger, worked my shift, and Mom called me when I got home.

To make a long story short, my other brother Ryan, who made cookies with us, had tested positive for Covid. A few days later my entire family was tested, and I happened to be the only one who tested negative. Because I still wanted to see the girls, I had quarantined myself in the attic since I heard the news of Ryan’s positive test. The attic has its own heating unit and full bathroom, so I'm completely isolated from my family, except when they bring me food which they leave at the bottom of the steps.

On Christmas Eve, I attended Mass virtually and then called Dad's high school best friend's family, and I wished them a merry Christmas. On Christmas morning, I woke up to a tiny lit Christmas tree near the stairs and I got a group FaceTime call from my family downstairs. We prayed the Rosary, as we do every Christmas morning. After that, I watched them open presents, then they sanitized mine and set them on the stairs for me to gather and open.

The rest of the day consisted of texting, FaceTimes, and calling family and friends, and playing a lot of guitar! The night ended with a zoom call with Mom's side of the family. We talked and sang Christmas carols for nearly two hours before we went to bed. I'm not going to say it was the best Christmas I've ever had, but all things considered, it wasn't too bad. If 2020 has reinforced anything for me, It's the idea that everything can always get worse, so no matter how hard it is, you have to try your hardest to look on the bright side of life!

I hope you had a Greattastic Christmas! 

Stay safe. J. Mitchie Ulibarri

Season 3: The Empire of Friends: Finale Part 2: A Story About Friendship

 A Story About Friendship

Luckily, another coworker noticed that I was struggling with reorganizing the salads and helped me out. Despite the alleviation of that stress, however, the sadness that I felt about Lily was still very present by the time I got off work. As soon as I got into my house, I got a text from an old friend...

I first mentioned Max back in Season 1. I met him at Haugland Learning Center, a school for kids on the autism spectrum that we attended, and where I am employed in less “Covidy” times! He was in one of my classes, and we hit it off right away! Max is at the very beginning of most of my stories about where I am today. He is part of the reason my "sisters" and I became friends after years of fighting, and he also set me on the path to working at Haugland.

Because we are both autistic, it was effortless for us to connect as it is for most people I meet on the Spectrum. But the thing that brought us together was his nickname for me. One day Max was having a meltdown, and I intervened. He gave me the nickname Dr. Mitch, and I continued to help him help throughout our time as students at Haugland.

Every year Haugland has a talent show. In my first year at the school, Max sang “We Are The Champions”, and everybody loved it. The second-year, he did "Ghostbusters," and while It was still excellent, it wasn't as bombastic as before. So for the third year, he and I teamed up and did a stand-up act. We practiced for hours and hours on these jokes, and while now I have to admit that they weren't as funny as I thought they were, we still had fun doing it!

When I left Haugland, Max and I grew apart. We didn't reconnect until February of 2019, at his birthday party. While I promised myself that I would stay in contact with him, between that February meeting and the beginning of the lockdown, I only saw him twice.

Weeks before the ball dropped, marking the start of 2020, I knew what my New Year's resolution was: by December, I would have a new friend group. At that time, August was preparing to do an internship in Utah, Arden had just recently moved to Colorado indefinitely, and Aspen was going to school in Miami, Florida. The only person from my childhood friend group left was Kid, who was just about to turn 16. I love Kid to death, but it was very obvious to me that I couldn't just have her as a friend.

I had a good start at building my "Empire of Friends." I had Marshall to begin with, and my now bandmate Noah, and a girl I went to grade school with named Anna. I planned to build my relationship with those three and through them meet new people and make new friends. But then Covid came and ruined those plans.

As I looked at Max's text, I thought about all the people I haven't seen since March. I realized at that moment that I was wrong about building a new friend group- I didn't need to. This "Empire of Friends" I've been searching for has been right in front of me the whole time!

 Have a Greattastic Day and Be Safe!

J. Mitchie Ulibarri.

Rules For A Greattastic Life will return for Christmas!

Season 3: The Empire of Friends: Finale Part 1: Ghost Lily

 Ghost Lily

It's been a few months since I talked about my former coworker Lily. I met her at the Kroger grocery store where I currently work. During the two and a half years before Lily started working at a different Kroger, she and I became very close due to our very similar sense of humor. After we got off work on the last night we worked together, Lily, her best friend Maya, and I went skateboarding. While skateboarding, their other friend, Owen, met up with us. Shortly after that night, Owen started working at my Kroger, and he started dating Lily.

About two weeks after Owen and Lily started dating; I was out getting carts on my Thursday night shift. I saw a car pull up and park, then Owen and Lily got out of the vehicle. They were too far away for me to catch them, but they saw me when they came out of the store. We only talked for about a minute because I had to get back to work. As they went to the car, Lily called back to me, "Now don't you go and fade out on me, ya hear?" I promised her I wouldn't, but while I intended to keep that promise, I didn't.

On 1/3/2021, I will have worked at Kroger for three years. Over that time, my schedule had only changed three times, and only when my availability changed. As a result, I got into the bad habit of not checking my schedule every time my boss updated it! I usually work on Tuesday mornings from 8 a.m. to noon. So I showed up for my shift and tried to clock in. The time clock informed me that I wasn't scheduled for that day, but I went to one of my bosses and asked him if he could override the time clock because I still wanted to work.

"Who switched you?" He asked as he helped me clock in.

"No one?" I replied, confused. "I always work Tuesday mornings."

"No. yesterday you worked 8-12." He explained.

Because I was completely unaware of this schedule change, and I explained it to another boss that night over text, there were no repercussions on my job as a whole. The big issue was that at 10:00, the people who were scheduled for that day started showing up, and they didn't need me in the front end. My boss sent me to the produce department to help restock salads. A woman in her mid-twenties named Jamie took me to the back where we keep the new shipments. She pointed to a blue trolley and said, "We're going to take these boxes and put them on the trolley and then you can start restocking!"

We stacked the boxes on the trolley so high that they towered over me! When I got back to the produce department, I realized that some salad brands had been completely stocked, but others had not been. Just by sheer coincidence, most of the boxes that I had on the trolley happened to have the salad brands that were completely stocked!

To top it all off, customers started asking me where to find things because the produce department had been recently rearranged. Because I typically work in the front end, I wasn’t much help. Whenever a customer asked me a question, all the other people who work in the produce department were in the back getting more new product. The sudden responsibility of being the sole employee in the produce department, and the trolley situation stress, induced an autism meltdown!

I tried to cope with this meltdown by doing something I do a lot: imagine myself in the future telling someone about what is happening now in a joking way; unfortunately, because I was at Kroger, out of habit, the first person I thought of telling the story to was Lily! As soon as she crept into my mind, I flashed back to all of the adventures Lily and I had while working together. Her "ghost" filled my memory, and a wave of sadness fell over me.

 To Be Continued…

 

Season 3: The Empire of Friends Blog 22: The Kid Kronicles #1-Jimothy

 The Kid Kronicles #1-Jimothy

I have always loved Dr. Seuss, and my favorite story of his is "How the Grinch Stole Christmas." I am so in a love with the character because the Jim Carrey Grinch movie was the first form of media that I saw, which took a pre-established story and added to it. While I was always a storyteller, that movie opened my eyes to the art of storytelling. My love for the character got so intense that for the last Christmas piano recital I ever performed in, I played "You're a Mean One" while dressed up as the Grinch!

Before the Andersons (my "sisters") moved into their house, the previous owner built a cabin in the backyard to watch Ohio State football games. One Saturday in early 2019, while I was working at Kroger, I got a strange text in a group chat with Kid and her friend Chelsea. Kid was having a sleepover with Chelsea, their longtime friend Ronny, and two other girls that I had never met before.  Kid and Chelsea had convinced the other three that an elf named Jimothy was living in the cabin. They wanted me to wait by the cabin and give their friends a jump-scare.

When reading the text, my thought process was as follows: Jimothy=Jim, Elf=mythical Christmas creature, Jim+mythical Christmas Creature=The Grinch… I have a Grinch costume... I should do this as the Grinch.

I waited for it to get dark, and I hopped the fence into the backyard, completely ”Grinched” out. I snuck to the cabin, waited for all four girls to come out, and I scared them. It was amusing because I hadn't walked Kid Or Chelsea through my thought process and plan, so they were pretty confused!

Last December I went to an ugly sweater party with my family. I didn't want to wear a sweater because that's what everyone does! So I kicked it up a notch and went in the Grinch costume. I shared a picture on my Instagram story, and Chelsea replied, begging me to do this installment. That was the entire reason I wrote this- originally.

As those who follow me on social media know, the weekend, a new installment comes out; I post a video of myself at the installment location, announcing that I have new content. This week I decided to dress up as the Grinch and go to the cabin to do the video.

I entered the Anderson's kitchen, and Kid's mom, Barbara, saw me with the Grinch costume. "Are you going to scare Chelsea?" she asked.

"No, I'm doing a video because both the blog and podcast I'm doing this week are about Jimothy."

"You know Arlo (Kid) is having Chelsea over today after school, right?" She replied.

Without a second of hesitation, I ran to the basement to change into the Grinch costume. When they got home, I continued the tradition and scared both of them. Even though initially I didn't have a reason to write this installment, I eventually found a reason. Always be ready because awesome adventures happen, especially when you least expect them!

Have a Greattastic Day and Be Safe!

J. Mitchie Ulibarri.

Season 3: The Empire of Friends Thanksgiving Special: The Man Who Saved Thanksgiving

 The Man Who Saved Thanksgiving

I talked about my Aunt Eva, my fairly new Uncle Zach, and their wedding in the very first installment of this season. Well, every Thanksgiving since she was three, Eva (and since their dating years, Zach) and my grandpa, who we call Pop-Pop, have come from Florida to Ohio. My parents, my three brothers, Ryan, Luke, and Josh, and I look forward to their Thanksgiving visit every year. Yet another thing this stupid virus has ruined!

The day before Thanksgiving, Luke complained about how much this Thanksgiving was going to stink. Not only were Pop-Pop, Eva, and Zach not coming, but our entire extended family would not be coming, we usually host 20-25 for dinner at our house. I was getting annoyed because he said everything I was thinking, but that I was trying to ignore. Luckily for us, there was one other person who could still come.

My cousin Austin was born and raised in Florida, and following in my dad's footsteps; he went to college in Ohio. Shortly after his graduation, he got a job in Columbus. He stayed with my family until he found his apartment. Saying Austin is eccentric is putting it lightly. He is the most quotable person I've ever met because he has a real knack for taking everyday situations and twisting them into pure comedic gold!

The last time we saw Austin was back in January for Ryan's birthday. After that, Austin got busy with work, and then you know, the world ended. At dinner the day before Thanksgiving, Josh texted Austin and asked him if he wanted to come over for Thanksgiving dinner.

"Mitchell-Maannn!" Austin exclaimed when he saw me.

"Austy-Aust!" I replied, mirroring his tone.

After a little more catching up, it was time for dinner. We said grace, served ourselves, and started to eat. I don't think I have laughed this hard for this long since early April, and I think my family would agree! Austin was exactly the boost we needed to start the holiday season!

Hope You Had A Greattastic Thanksgiving! 

J. Mitchie Ulibarri

Season 3: The Empire of Friends Blog 21: The Girl In The Church

 The Girl In The Church

August recently moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. After I got my driver's license, I texted the group chat I'm in with my "sisters" and told them the news. After everyone congratulated me August asked me when I would be driving up to see her. I told her not for a while because I wasn't confident enough to make the three-hour drive on my own yet. It was at this point that Aspen suggested that she and I drive up there that weekend.

We couldn't go that weekend because August and her roommate had not completely unpacked everything yet. We weren't able to go the following week because of conflicts with Aspen's schedule. So three weeks after I got my license, Aspen and I drove to Pittsburgh.

After nearly three hours of driving, Aspen and I drove through a tunnel, and on the other side was the magnificent city of Pittsburgh! As we drove through the town, we couldn't believe that we were still in the midwest because the curvy roads felt more like California than Ohio. After another 30 minutes, we found ourselves at August's apartment. After we ate dinner, August drove us around the city, then we went back to the apartment to hang out.

Back at the apartment, I started stimming (hand flapping, squealing, and bouncing on the balls of my feet) because I was excited to be there. Eventually, we went to bed and got up at nine the next morning. Because it was Sunday, we knew we had to go to church, but we decided to go at 6:00 pm instead of in the morning because of daylight savings time.

We explored Pittsburgh all day and the whole time, I was cracking jokes and making the girls laugh. Throughout our childhood, we had an ongoing joke where I would say I was the funny one in the group, and the girls would disagree.

"You really are the funny one!" August said after I cracked one particularly funny joke.

"I told you!" I replied.

"I mean, I think we're all pretty funny!" Aspen said.

"I mean yeah," I agreed, "but comedy is all I have!"

The girls told me I was wrong. I decided not to joke about my "blossoming" teaching career and love life because it would have been depressing. I kind of wish I would have gone for it, though, because retroactively, the joke would have been incredibly ironic!

We got to the church right as Mass was about to start. August got into the pew first, followed by Aspen, and I sat at the end of the pew closest to the aisle. On the other side of the aisle, in another pew, was a beautiful woman. She saw me, and immediately she started stimming. I don't mean anything subtle; I mean full-on, bouncing her legs, rocking back and forth, and squealing! On top of that, when it was time for us to receive Holy Communion, I ended up in line behind her, which caused her to stim even more!

I don't bring this up to call out this woman on her stims. I bring it up because this girl thought I was cute, and while I will never see her again, at least I know there are some people out there who do. Sometimes you can assume the worst things about yourself and your future, especially now… But no matter what, those negative thoughts are always wrong!

Have A Greattastic Day and Be Safe!

J. Mitchie Ulibarri

Season 3: The Empire of Friends Blog 20: Game Night!

 Game Night!

As I stated in a previous installment, over the summer, Marshall worked in Montrose, Colorado, helping run the machines that remove contaminants and sanitize N95 masks. While there, Marshall worked with a man named Tim. After introducing themselves, Marshall asked Tim where he was from. It just so happened that Tim also lived in Columbus before getting the job! After working together with the whole summer, Marshall and Tim's site closed down, but they promised to meet up when they were back in Ohio.

As a result of the summer job, Marshall got a full-time job working as a research associate at P&G! Between the new job, still going to school part-time, and all the other crazy variables of life, Marshall and I haven't been able to go on as many adventures as we did Pre-Covid. Now that doesn't mean that we haven't seen each other most weekends. He usually comes to my house and does homework while I do writing stuff. There's not a lot of content to write about for these events because it's the same thing every weekend—most of the time.

The last time he came over, we had a "break day." The weekend before was Tim's girlfriend, Holly's birthday. In the middle of our session, Marshall and I drove to meet Tim and Holly to give her a gift. We had to get back to work, so we left fairly quickly, but this led Tim and Holly to invite Marshall and me to a board game night with them and one of their friends the next weekend.

We spent Sunday afternoon playing tennis with Kid, and around 5:30, Marshall and I drove to the other side of town to Tim and Holly's house. We walked into the house and were immediately met by Tim and Holly's dog, Samson. Samson is a puppy, maybe a few months old, and let me tell you; he liked me! The entire night as we ate dinner and played games, he was either looking at me or jumping on me.

After Tim and Holly calmed Samson down, they introduced us to their friend Janeel. We sat down, and Marshall and I spent most of the time… Okay, fine, who am I kidding? I spent most of the time telling stories about Marshall and my adventures. As I told our stories, I came to a sudden realization! 

COVID-19 has completely wrecked this year, and I don't think anyone would argue that. Those new human interactions, those chance meetings, those crazy nights, or a lack thereof have made this situation so hard and complicated. It's not that I haven't known this since early April. Still, that fact has become diluted by the isolation and the abnormality of life. I hope and pray that someday soon, we can all be together again! 

Have a Greattastic Day and be Safe! 

J. Mitchie Ulibarri

Season 3: The Empire of Friends: Blog 19: The Rubber Ducky Incident

 The Rubber Ducky Incident

We have a flat roof over our back patio, and this summer, Mom was growing tomato plants on it. One day it had been very windy, and some of the tomato plants had been knocked over. I was brainstorming what I would write for the Rules For Greattastic Life installment that week when Mom came in and opened the window to water the plants. When she saw the knocked-over plants, she exclaimed, "Aw, poor puppies!" Even though she was referring to the plants, I immediately thought that somehow little dogs had ended up on the roof. I'm very high functioning on the autism spectrum, but there are a lot of times when I still don't understand things as much as I "should."

Case and point: Dad owns an art studio, and if he finds random stuff, he thinks of something that he could use it for. We've had this rubber yellow rain suit for years. Mom recently found it, and Dad asked if she could bring it to the studio. Mom left it out but forgot to bring it with her when she went in. It was supposed to rain pretty heavily that night, and I had to ride my bike to work at six.

This suit came in two parts. The top half was just a yellow rain jacket, but the bottom had a few problems. First of all, they were way too big for me. Second of all, they had suspenders on them, and I didn't know until later that I was supposed to wear the suspenders under the jacket. I got everything on, looked at myself in the mirror, and thought, Yeah, there's no problem with this.

It had been raining pretty heavily when I was getting everything on, but it was only a sprinkle by the time I got to Kroger. So I went into the store to clock in, looking like Georgie from "IT," and people looked at me and snickered. At this point, I realized I'd made a bad fashion choice and had a few very traumatic flashbacks to sixth grade. I checked to see what time I was on carts, and the schedule said I was on right away. I said to myself, "Self, you're going to go on carts, and then you're going to go to the break room, and take this off and forget this ever happened!"

I went outside, and as I was about to bring in my first row, I heard someone call my name from behind me. I turned around and saw my coworker Maya sitting in her car, motioning for me to come over.

"Mitchell," She asked. "Why are you dressed like a freaking rubber ducky?" I let her have her moment of glory and talked to her for another minute before returning it to work. After getting a few more rows of carts, I saw a motorized cart for older people sitting out in the rain. There was a massive puddle in the chair, but I assumed I was waterproof because I was wearing the "ducky" suit.

Unfortunately, as I said before, the pants were too big for me, and the jeans I was wearing were very loose-fitting. So I sat down on the electric cart, my butt displaced the water, and as it rose, it went down both pairs of pants. When the cold water got to my crotch, I jumped up in shock, and it ran down my leg!

I waddled back to Maya (fulfilling the prophecy and becoming a full-on rubber duck) and told her what happened. After I explained it to her, I tried to rationalize my way out of the situation by saying, "I can totally take this off, I'll just tell them what happened!"

"Mitchell," she replied, "You look like The Man with the Yellow Hat! No one is going to believe that story; they'll just think you are saying that to get out of the awkwardness of the situation!"

I decided to stay on carts for another hour until my pants had dried. But as soon as I made that decision, the light sprinkle that had still been going on this whole time stopped completely! So I ended up walking around in this yellow abomination, with no way to take it off, but no reason to be wearing it! Everything ended up alright in the end. It was a problem that resolved itself, but it was very frustrating! I just thought I would tell you because I think it's funny, and these are the sort of things that happen to me.

Have a Greattastic Day And Be Safe!

J. Mitchie Ulibarri

Season 3: The Empire of Friends Blog 18: Play Another Song

 Play Another Song

About a year ago, I mentioned that my goal was to get my driver's license. Shortly after introducing you to this goal, I made my first step towards achieving it by getting my temps. I mostly practiced driving by going to and from work, and because my parents were so busy with their art studio, we didn't practice much more than that. When Covid-19 hit, I still didn't do a lot of driving because there wasn't anywhere I needed to go during the lockdown.

When the lockdown ended, my parents became busy with the studio again. In July, I knew I had to make practicing for the drivers test my priority because my temps would expire on 11/15/2020. Because of Mom and Dad's busy schedule, I asked my grandpa, who we call Papa, if he could take me to practice. My first few times in the car with Papa, we only drove around Clintonville, the community where I live. We only started working on maneuverability at the beginning of September.

At the same time, I had a meeting with my counselor. I told her that I hadn't scheduled my driving test because I still had two months before my temps expired. I was also just about to start practicing maneuverability. She told me that I should probably schedule it sooner rather than later because the BMV has been busy due to the lockdown. I scheduled my test for 10/21/2020, and Papa and I spent all of our time practicing maneuverability.

The Ohio maneuverability test is set up as follows: Two cones are placed parallel to each other nine feet apart. Two more cones are put in the same position, 20 feet behind the first two. A fifth cone is centered another 20 feet away from the second two. To pass the test's maneuverability portion, a driver has to pull up to the first two cones and line up front bumper the car with them. The driver must then look both ways and drive between all four cones without hitting any of the cones. Depending on the instructor's direction, the driver must turn right or left at the fifth cone, straighten the car up and stop with the back bumper lined up with the cone. After that, all the driver has to do is reverse back through the cones, again without hitting them.

Pulling through the cones wasn't as much of a problem for me as reversing through them was! My first time practicing, it took me about an hour and 50 minutes out of two hours to get a streak of successful times going. My second time practicing, everything was going perfectly until about 20 minutes in, I hit a cone and started doubting myself. As my mental state deteriorated over the next hour and 40 minutes, I gradually hit more cones.  

The third practice went very similarly to the second except toward the end of the two hours when my doubt was at its peak; Papa told me to turn the car off come over to him. He asked me what was wrong, and I talked him through everything that was going on.

Papa sat, I thought for a second and then said, "You know what you should do! You should imagine the cones as people!"

"Yeah, cuz that’s gonna help with the stress!" I replied sarcastically.

"I'm serious!" He replied. "Think about it, what do you do when you have a song stuck in your head?"

"You play another song," I answered.

"Exactly!" Papa exclaimed. "Right now you're overthinking, but if you focus on making the cones people it would distract you you'll be overthinking more about that than the fact that this is practice for a test!"

I got back in the car and imagined cones one and two as August and Arden, cones three and four as Aspen and Kid, and cone five as Marshall. When we practiced for a fourth time a few days later, I only "killed" Aspen once over the entire two hours! Quite honestly, over the remaining practices, Aspen was the hardest to keep "alive," but I eventually managed it.

In my original plan for this installment, this last paragraph was going to be about the test itself. Honestly, however, there's not enough content for me to write regarding it. The only thing you need to know is something you probably already figured out —I passed!!! I'm so excited to finally have my license and I can't wait to see the new possibilities that this opens up!

Have a Greattastic Day, and Be Safe!

J. Mitchie Ulibarri

Season 3: The Empire of Friends: Blog 17: More Years Lost

 More Years Lost

    Eleven years ago today (10/15/2020) started the worst week of my life. On this day in 2009, my best friend Samantha McCarthy, who I lovingly refer to as S.M, passed away after a long battle with a rare blood disorder called Fanconi Anemia. I haven't talked about S.M. recently because all of the Sam's Fans events that I would be heavily involved with were all moved online due to COVID-19. For those of you who don't know, Sam's Fans is a nonprofit organization that raises money to support music and art therapy in Ohio hospitals, founded by S.M's mom, Nikki! I make an effort to go to her grave two times a year; once on her birthday, March 15th, and once on the anniversary of her “heavenly” birthday, October 15. This year, S.M's birthday landed on the weekend, just when the quarantine started. I could not go on March 15th, so I made an extreme effort to go today.

I got into the driver's seat, and Mom and got into the passenger seat with the flowers I had bought yesterday. When we got into the cemetery, I drove to St. Elizabeth's lot, and Mom and I got out of the car. As I put the flowers on her grave, I started to think about the problems I have with this day:

    I didn't find out that S.M. had passed away until the morning after. When Mom and Dad told me, I didn't completely believe them. Not that I thought they were lying to me about it, but when you are told about the death of someone you love, it takes a while for your emotions to catch up to the facts- at least that's how it worked for me. It took me until the night of the viewing to realize that S.M. was gone. Standing in the funeral home with her family and friends made me face the reality of the situation. From that point on, I considered October 15th the worst day of the year. Even after I started acknowledging my grief and reconnected with S.M's family and joined Sam's Fans, October 15th was still a day that I did not enjoy. That remained true, until last year.  

    My birthday is on August 19th. As a present last year, Mom and Dad bought me an airline ticket to visit my "sister" Arden, that September. I stayed with Arden for two weeks, and one night we went out for dinner. Over dinner, we started to have a deep conversation, as I typically do with Arden. It happened to be about S.M. and some lingering grief. Arden gave me the best advice that she could, and I wrote a blog about it. Unfortunately, sometimes the English language fails to describe emotions correctly, which was one of those times. I wasn't accurately explaining to Arden what I was going through. As a result, the advice she gave me was partially incomplete. Luckily S.M’s mom, Nikki read the blog I wrote, and she filled in the gaps with what I was trying to say and added onto Arden's advice. Arden and Nikki's joint advice helped me finally accept everything that had happened after nearly ten years.

    

    As the 10th anniversary approached a month later, I wasn't feeling as bad as I usually did. I'm not complaining, I took it as a good sign, but I didn't think it would last, especially not this year. S.M. was 11 years old when she died. In Nikki's own words from today on, "we will forever be going in the direction of more years lost than what we had." I guess what I'm saying is even though I am as okay as I am ever going to be with this, I feel guilty for not being as sad as I used to feel on this anniversary. Especially this year because it is such a monumental moment. But I know S.M. doesn't want me to be sad; that's not the kind of person she was. She was one of the most positive people I have ever met. So for all of the people who knew her, do not be sad. Instead, spread positivity because that's what keeps her spirit alive! Every time you make someone smile, or laugh, or help them work through something, you are doing what she would have done.

Have a Greattastic day and be safe!

J. Mitchie Ulibarri

You can find more information about Sam's Fans at www.samsfans.org or by following them on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @samsfans15!

Season 3: The Empire of Friends Blog 16: Flat Earthers Got Nothing On Us

 Flat Earthers Got Nothing On Us

August’s 24 birthday was on 9/29/2020. Originally Arden, Marshall, and I planned to surprise August, Aspen, and Kid by having Arden fly in from Colorado for her birthday. The plan was for Arden to fly in on the 24th and then we would hike the Smoky Mountains on the weekend. The problem was that August had to have surgery to get some hardware removed from her arm. She had a sledding accident a few years ago and recently it had started causing problems. The reason she had to get her surgery directly before her birthday was that on 10/6/2020 August will be moving to Pittsburgh. As a result of the surgery we had to keep the weekend pretty low-key, and just by sheer coincidence, everybody found out about the surprise.

Upon hearing about Arden's return for the weekend, Ben, August’s boyfriend decided to come to town from Pittsburgh to celebrate as well. We had an amazing weekend and did a ton of insane stuff. However, the thing I'm going to focus on now is an argument that pinned August and me against Arden and Aspen!

It started when we were all sitting around the kitchen table talking about small hikes in the area. Someone made a comment about Aspen not being an outdoorsy person. Her defense was that it wasn't that she wasn't outdoorsy it was just that she didn't like Ohio’s spin on nature because it's all the same.

“Well, all nature is the same,” I replied.

“What? No, it's not. Is a hill the same as a mountain?” Aspen retorted.

“Yes, they are!” I said matter-of-factly. “Generally speaking, both are mounds of earth that build to the sky. The difference is one is bigger than the other!”

Aspen and I went back and forth, escalating the conversation with each word until we started talking about the ocean. Aspen said that the ocean is different from the rest of nature and I said, “The ocean is not part of the earth though!”

“Yes, it is!” Arden and Aspen exclaimed.

“Guys,” I explained, “If you take water off of the Earth it's just the crust! The water is on top of the earth!”

 I will admit, while I was arguing my point, it was not as clear as it was in the quote above. It is clearer here because I’ve had a week to think about this. Even though I wasn't saying exactly what I wanted to say, August still understood my point and took my side. We spent about 15 minutes arguing back and forth before August, abandoned me because she got tired of fighting!

Without August to back me up, the other two won the argument, at least that is until Arden knocked a cup of water onto the kitchen floor. “See!” I proclaimed pointing to the water on the floor, “The water is on top of the floor!” This reignited the fight and after about five more minutes we figured out that we were saying the same thing, We were just defining what the word “Earth” meant differently.

Arden and Aspen were talking about the Earth as an ecosystem and August and I were strictly talking about the globe. After a week of not trying to think about this incident, I realized how this argument serves as a great depiction of autism. When talking to people on the spectrum, sometimes if what they are saying doesn't make sense at first, it could be exactly what you are thinking!

Have A Greattastic Day And Be safe!

J. Mitchie Ulibarri