Season 3: The Empire of Friends Blog 15: Goodbye Lily

 Goodbye Lily

    As you may know, I have worked at a Kroger grocery store for the past two and a half years. A month after I started working at Kroger, I met Lily, who had recently been hired. We built a friendship based on our similar sense of humor. On top of that, I am more of a dreamer, and she is more of a realist, so we balance each other out. While Lily has been a recurring character in this series, there is one person that I have not talked about virtually at all!

Maya is Lily's best friend. After a year of working at Kroger, Lily convinced Maya to apply to Kroger as a bagger. Much like Lily, Maya was quickly promoted to cashier. Eventually, however, Maya changed departments entirely and started working at the Starbucks cafe located in the store.

On the week of Lily's vacation, one of my bosses told me to take out the trash. As I walked to the back of the store, I passed Starbucks and saw Maya. Maya had some garbage, and she asked me if I could take hers too. As she was handing over her trash, she let it slip that Lily had put in her two weeks notice before going on vacation. I didn't see Lily again until her last day working at Kroger.

The night wasn't sad, at least not until we got to our last customer. A few minutes before ten, the customer walked to our register, and I gave a dramatic salute. "It's been a pleasure serving with you!" I said, trying to be funny, but accidentally making it worse. I could tell she was about to cry, which wasn't good because I knew the second she started crying; it was over for me.

After we had both clocked out, We walked outside, but because I didn't want to say goodbye yet, I walked to her car instead of getting on my bike, and we talked for an hour. We talked about everything that we had done while working together and all the accomplishments we have made.

Even though I was getting tired, I still didn't want to say goodbye yet, so Lily suggested going skateboarding; I was all in! We drove to Maya's house, picked her up, and then went down to the local high school parking lot to skateboard. I've been skateboarding before, but I've never been as good at it as I was that night!

After another friend of theirs, Owen, showed up, we skated for about another hour before I decided it was time to go home. Lily, Maya, and Owen drove me back to Kroger, and I finally said goodbye to Lily. I walked towards my bike and watched as they drove off. Even though I was sad, I smiled because I'm excited to see what life has in store for my friend Lily!

Have a Greattastic day and be safe!

J. Mitchie Ulibarri

Season 3 The Empire of Friends Blog 14: Back To Basics

 Back To Basics

    After the most emotionally confusing 15 minutes of my life, Ben and August left for Pittsburgh, leaving Marshall and I standing in the street. We talked for a good hour, during which time Marshall explained that his specific job site had closed down a week early. He then told me that he and his brother, Isaac, were going on a quick backpacking trip at the end of the month, right before returning to Columbus for good. He asked if I wanted to come!

    The day finally arrived, and Marshall and Isaac picked me up. We left my house around 2:00 and drove the two hours down to Wayne National Forest. We parked, put on our backpacks, and marched into the forest. It was so humid that we were all drenched in sweat, not even a quarter of a mile into our hike.

After miles of hiking, we came to a small clearing. We stopped there to catch our breath and got a clear view of a lake that stretched on as far as the eye could see. Overlooking the lake was a cliff. "Hey, guys!" Marshall said, "See that cliff up there? About 20 feet behind that is where we are camping! We're almost there!!!"

We continued walking until we arrived at the cliff's top. We took a second to take in the view and stood in awe of the nature surrounding us. Moments later thunder in the distance added anxiety to the awe. Our new-found freedom from the worries of everyday life quickly turned to haste in pitching our tents. Broken stakes, rain, and failed attempts at being helpful from Isaac and me, only hindered Marshall's process of setting up camp.  We managed to get my tent pitched. As soon as we had finished, the rain stopped because, of course, it did. We got Marshall, and Isaac's tent pitched. By some miracle, Marshall managed to get a pretty big fire started using only wet wood.

After we ate and the sun had set, Marshall, Isaac, and I went out to the cliff and looked at the stars. As we sat there, I got pretty excited! Marshall was coming home! COVID-19 has changed many things, and things are not back to normal, but Marshall coming back marks a very significant point for me. My personal life is at least starting to look like what it did before the virus hit. I know that things are far from normal, but I consider this the start of things getting back to basics!

Have a Greattastic day and be safe!

J. Mitchie Ulibarri  

Season 3 The Empire of Friends Blog 13: Marshall Returns

 Marshall Returns

As I knew Marshall's job at Battelle was only going to last through the summer, I called him near the end of July and asked him when he would be home. He told me that he planned to come to town and move into his new apartment on 8/10/2020. He would go to Cleveland to spend the rest of the month with his family before starting both classes at the Ohio State University and a new job in early September.

August had a summer job last year in Colorado. She had to come back to Columbus to finish her last semester of college at Ohio State. Upon her return, she had to get a new job. After a lengthy search, she got hired at an indoor rock climbing gym called Vertical Adventures.

As soon as August started working there, she and a co-worker named Ben hit it off. She spent the whole semester talking to me about him. After some minor convincing from me, August asked Ben out, and on New Year's Eve, they started dating.

In early January, August went on an internship in Utah. Things didn’t go as planned with the internship and she ended up back in Colorado with Arden. When Vertical Adventures shut down because of COVID-19, Ben drove from Columbus to Loveland and spent the entire lockdown with August and Arden. When the lockdown ended, Ben and August returned to Columbus, where they spent all their days together. All of this is to say that since the middle of March, August and Ben have been together constantly, they are nearly inseparable. Unfortunately, this eventually had to come to an end.

Ben's pre-COVID plan for this year was to move to Pittsburgh to help a struggling gym owned by Vertical Adventures get back on its feet. The only thing COVID did was delay this plan. On July 31, 2020, Ben officially moved to Pittsburgh.

August, Aspen, and I went to Ben's apartment to load everything into the U-Haul he was renting. We finished getting everything in the truck but realized there was no room for his plants in the cab. Fortunately, August was driving to Pittsburgh with Ben, so he would have to come back and drop her off. We took all his plants and put them in August's car and drove back to our street, Meadow Park Drive.

We got back to my "sisters'" house, took the plants inside, and August went inside to say goodbye. By that time, Ben had arrived and parked the U-Haul right in front of the house.

I walked with August down the driveway consoling her with words of hope and love. Right when I was about to get all inspirational, my phone started to ring!

"Hey, Marshall!" I said, "Can I call you back?  Bens about to- Actually you're going to miss him so I'll give my phone to him." When I gave Ben my phone, he gave me an awkward look, but I wasn't aware enough to figure out what was going on.

After about two minutes, Ben gave me my phone back, and he and August prepared to leave. Suddenly Marshall appeared from behind the U-Haul and hugged Ben. I was so focused on supporting August that Marshall's sudden appearance put me into a state of shock, and I couldn't react to anything for a good 15 minutes!

To be Continued...

Season 3 The Empire of Friends Blog 12: Marshall vs. COVID-19

 Marshall vs. COVID-19

On March 11, 2020, I awoke to August moving around in Arden's apartment in Loveland Colorado. I asked her what she was doing, and she said,  “I’m doing an 'Instacart' I’ll be back in an hour”. I got up to get ready for the day and accidentally woke Marshall up. The day before, we found out that the Ohio State University was closing down due to COVID-19. Marshall was a student ambassador at Columbus State Community College. We figured that because Ohio State had closed down, Columbus State would close down soon after.

"Look," Marshall vented, "I've put all this work and dedicated so much time to Columbus State, now that it’s closing I don't know what I'm going to do. Graduation probably isn’t even going to happen!"

I tried to tell him everything would be okay- not that I believed what I was saying. Honestly, I was only saying it because one of us had to be positive! Little did I know how right I was, specifically when talking about Marshall's life. I'm not going to say that this hasn't been hard on him, but I propose that he has had the best 2020 out of anyone I know!

The next day we flew into Cleveland, drove back to Columbus right as Ohio completely shut down and Marshall dropped me off. That weekend Marshall and a group of his friends hiked the Smoky Mountains. After that, he returned to Cleveland to be with his family during the quarantine.

When the quarantine was ending, I got a call from Marshall. He said he was coming back into town for a few days before leaving for a job at Battelle, which, just by sheer coincidence, ended up being in Montrose, Colorado! After seeing me, August, Aspen, and Kid that weekend, Marshall left to start his job on May 1st.

Marshall worked 12-hour days, seven days a week. He was running one of Battelle Memorial Institute's Critical Care Decontamination Systems. They removed contaminates from N95 respirators. Despite the grueling schedule, Marshall enjoyed his job, still managed to climb miles of mountains, and see Arden from time to time. I was (and still am) so proud of everything Marshall has done! But of course, I did miss him, and I couldn't wait for him to come back to Columbus.

To be continued...