Boundless Friendship
Hello All!
How did I end up here writing this installment for my friend Mitchell?? It all started the night of the Create for a Cause event, which we both happened to be attending. The company that I recently started working for (King Business Interiors) has been putting on this event for a couple years, they choose different nonprofit organizations to partner with to help raise money for different causes. This year they chose to work with I am Boundless, a wonderful nonprofit organization that provides services for those on the spectrum. The goal of the evening was to raise money for I am Boundless. King Business Interiors had different people paint platers which in turn were auctioned off the evening of the event and let me just say they had some really beautiful platters there.
The event started at 7:00pm, and it was held at St. Charles Preparatory High School, which I had never been there before and I’ve lived in Columbus my whole life. Architecturally it's a beautiful building. When you walked in they had a table set up with folks to greet you as you arrived. Lots of lights, balloons, food, and people enjoying themselves.
I arrived with my boyfriend, Russell, and my sister and her husband, as you were allowed to invite relatives and friends to come. We made our way to the table where my parents, aunt, and uncle had been sitting. We chatted with them, enjoyed some drinks, and mingled a little. To be honest I was waiting for the music to start up. I had heard at work that they were going to have a live band there and they were amazing! I’m a dancer, not a trained dancer, just like to bust a move. You know like weddings, this is essentially what this event was, a wedding reception and all these lovely people were invited. I can easily get off topic...I’ll try not to anymore.
Okay, so we drank, ate, mingled and then the music started up. Not many people made their way to the dance floor, however, I didn't let an empty dance floor scare me, so off we went to dance. After dancing for a couple I was having a chat with my sister when a nice young gentleman approached us and kindly introduced himself to us, MITCHELL!! Mitchell has this energy and confidence like no one else, he has a smile that will literally make you smile even if you're in a bad mood, and dance moves like you’ve never seen before. As soon as we started talking I knew we were going to be friends. Mitchell told us about his podcast and blog, he began to tell us how it's about growing up as a person with autism. I wanted to know more about Mitchell. I have worked with friends on the spectrum for years, in fact, the non-profit of the evening, I am Boundless, I worked for them. Funny how things can come full circle. We continued our evening with dancing, taking short breaks to catch our breaths and refresh our beverages, we were breaking a sweat. None of us were ready for the evening to be over.
Mitchell:
When I first met Noah's girlfriend, Lori, I was uncharacteristically nervous. This happened because any “social grace” I had built up in my 22 and a half years of life before covid were long gone by the time the three of us sat down for that dinner. The reason I survived our meeting was that Lori and I have a lot of similarities and Noah knew us both enough to steer the conversation in the correct direction. In the almost year since I met Lori my confidence hadn't reached pre-pandemic levels. When I asked Deanna to do this installment, I knew that she was probably going to say something about my confidence on that night. When I was reading this over, however, I couldn't help but laugh because Deanna and presumably her family were obviously unaware of why I was so confident: THEM. When I approached them, I was super uncomfortable because I was just trying to mingle, but I had no idea what to say to anyone. Deanna and her family gave me a chance to work out any excess awkwardness I have developed over covid and let my confidence come back for the first time since March 12th, 2020!
Have a Greattastic Day and Be Safe!
J. Mitchie Ulibarri & Deanna
No comments:
Post a Comment