Season 5 Who Am I? Blog 3: Proposal On Gleason Road

 Proposal On Gleason Road

Jessica, Shane‘s girlfriend, was dropped off at our Gleason Road apartment at 6:30 by her mother. They were celebrating their three-year anniversary. Jessica followed a path of pink rose petals to the front door. When she opened the door she saw Shane standing in the living room. The kitchen table that I brought when I moved in was sitting in the middle of the room and a candlelight dinner was ready. The ground was covered in those same pink rose petals and there was a curtain dividing the living room and the kitchen.

“Why is there a curtain?” She asked after they had said their hellos.

“You don’t need to worry about that.” Shane lied.

30 minutes before Jessica arrived, her dad, her siblings, their respective spouses, Shane‘s parents and their neighbor Bill entered our apartment. Bill is a successful local musician. I walked them through what was going to happen. When Jessica arrived at 6:30 everyone would hide in my backyard while Shane and Jessica had dinner. When Shane was ready he would send me a text and I would lead everyone into the kitchen through the back door. While we were coming in Shane would sing “Just The Way You Are” by Bruno Mars. When he had finished that song, from behind the curtain I would play keyboard, Bill would play guitar and we would lead everyone in Elvis's “Can't Help Falling in Love”, and at the second chorus Jessica's brother would hit a button, and the curtain would fall revealing all of us. After “Can't Help Falling in Love”, everyone except Bill and I would enter the living room and Shane would sing, “All of Me” by John Legend. During that song, he would propose and after that together we would all sing “What a Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong.

Best laid plans, but that's not exactly how it happened… Cuz it's me… Why would this be anything short of ridiculous and complicated? As I had been explaining the plan to the family, I didn’t actually lower the curtain because it would have been a hassle to hang it back up again so I let it hang by bungee cords when I pushed the button for the Kabuki drop (look it up, it’s pretty cool). I hit the button to demonstrate the dramatic drop and then incorrectly clipped the current back in. There was also a weight at the bottom of the curtain and so that it didn't accidentally rip the cord out of my keyboard when I lowered it, I unplugged my keyboard. At the end of my demonstration, Jessica showed up, and we all quickly and quietly left the apartment through the back door.

Shane texted me at 6:55 and I led everyone to the back door. Now I had a lawn chair propping the screen door open so that we could avoid as much noise as possible. I got to the screen door, held it open, and tried to move the lawn chair so people could get in; but I accidentally dropped it causing a loud crash. Everyone went in single file and by the time I got in “Just The Way You Are” was almost over. It was at this point that I realized that I had not plugged my keyboard back in. I stealthily snuck around the curtain, and miraculously managed to get it plugged in without Jessica noticing me.

When we were ready, Bill and I started playing and singing, and when the time came, Jessica's brother hit the button to drop the curtain. Unfortunately, because I had not clipped it incorrectly it didn't drop, but Jessica's dad pulled it down only a few seconds later. As Shane was singing “All of Me” I started to notice his voice was cracking. It confused me at first because he wasn't having this problem when we practiced. But then I realized, he was crying. By the time the ring was out and he was down on one knee, Shane was full-on ugly crying.

I bring this up not to call him out, but I think it's a testament to how much Shane loves Jessica. Shane and I had been planning this since the night I moved in a month ago and after all that practicing, when it came down to the moment that he proposed, he was so full of emotion that he lost control. And I think that's beautiful!

Congratulations Shane and Jessica!

J. Mitchie Ulibarri

Season 5 Who Am I? Blog 2: Essential Question: Who Am I?

 Essential Question: Who Am I?

For high school, I went to The Graham School (TGS). All four years, students would go on internships. The first three years the internships were only on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but seniors would go every day for the second half of the school year. This was called Walkabout. In preparation, the first half of the year, seniors would research what kind of site they wanted to do, update resumes, interview prep, etc.

After a site “hired” the student, they had to write a “Walkabout proposal” and turn it into their parents/guardians, homeroom teacher, and site mentor(s). The proposal provided information about TGS, what led the student to the specific site, and the student’s essential question. An essential question was basically just a question that related to both the student and the site and the goal was to answer the question by the end of Walkabout. For example, mine was: Can I be a teacher for the rest of my life?

In 2019 my “sister” Arden moved to Colorado and my “sisters” August and Aspen were on their way out. After Arden moved, the inevitability of the other two leaving caused me a lot of stress. To cope, I made a three-part plan for me moving forward. Part 1: Survive the girls leaving and the emotional fallout. Part 2: In 2020, make new friends and spend time with them. Part 3: In 2021, ask one of the previously mentioned new friends to be my roommate.

Obviously, Covid interfered with my plans a bit, but what is important for the sake of this installment is not how the world stopped, but what happened when it slowly started back up. It started on April 24th of last year when I officially became a published author. Then on May 20th, I started dating a girl. At the end of June, I was a groomsman in my “brother” Greg's two weddings (Nigerian and Western). The next weekend my “sisters”, myself and my best friend Marshall, stayed with Arden in Colorado for the 4th of July. Upon returning from Colorado, I started my job at New Story as a teacher support.

On August 5th, I broke up with the girl that I had been dating and she went crazy. She started harassing me through text, email, and social media, and she even showed up at Kroger where I worked a couple of times. This whole thing went on for about a month until I finally changed my number, and got a restraining order. After that I quit Kroger after four years and almost immediately after quitting, I moved in with my former coworker Shane. In summary, I spent a year doing nothing followed by a year of being incredibly busy and I have been experiencing a lot of whiplash as a result.

Now Shane also went to TGS and when we first met we bonded over that fact. After a particularly intense session of reminiscing when I first moved in, I went to my Google drive and I started looking through my walkabout stuff. I found my proposal and I was inspired. I have always based each season of Rules for a Greattastic Life on the goal I am trying to reach that season. I think I'm going to start framing them as essential questions from this point on. My essential question for this season is “Who am I?” My reasoning is I think I need to get to know myself a little better after the events of the last two years before I try to reach any more major goals.

One last note, the season finale of season 2 was called “Don't Wait.” Covid had just hit and I wrote that installment not only to try to give people hope but to tell the future me to learn from the lockdown we were all currently in and never wait to do anything. In that spirit, even though the main point of this season is for me to take a little break and do some self-discovery, I'm still going to be trying to get started on some other long-term goals.

Have a Greattastic day and be safe!

J. Mitchie Ulibarri

Season 5 Who Am I? Blog 1: Out Of Body Experience

Out Of Body Experience

I woke up at 4:30 a.m. in a room I did not recognize. My heart started racing, and I started to panic. The only logical explanation was that I had been kidnapped! I sat up in bed ready to fight whatever dangers laid beyond the door… My anxiety drifted away as my own voice echoed in my head, Goodbye Meadow Park it's been fun!

“Oh right!” I said laying back down, “I live here now!”

I woke up again at about 10:00 and I got ready to take a shower so that I could go to noon Mass. Now the shower at my apartment has three knobs, while the shower at my parents' house only has one. I wish that I could say that I am competent enough to take a shower without my roommate, Shane, thinking that I'm being murdered, but unfortunately, that would be a lie.

The next day was Presidents Day, and since I didn't have to go to work at the school, I went to Kroger to buy essentials. This was strange because it was the first time that I had been to Kroger since I quit, as well as the fact that I was now completely buying my own stuff.

Honestly, I'm kind of struggling to write the rest of this installment… And I think that's the point. Not a lot of “blog/podcast worthy” stuff has happened yet. I've mostly been doing mundane things… but it's weird cuz they don't feel mundane.

I think they don't feel that way because everything is a first. The first time I did the dishes at my house, or paid the rent, or had someone over… It was all normal, but it didn't quite feel real. It's only now after two weeks of living here on Gleason Road, that this out-of-body experience is ending. With it over, I feel that my life on my own has truly begun!

Have a Greattastic day and be safe! 

J. Mitchie Ulibarri

Before I end this installment I want to talk about the situation in Ukraine. It’s hard for me to put into words what I’m feeling. It's such a horrible thing and obviously, I've never experienced anything like that so it feels inappropriate to say anything hopeful or reassuring like I usually would…I guess all I have to say is my heart goes out to the Ukrainian people. I ask that you join me in taking a moment of silence for the people suffering, and for all the lives that have been lost….