Season 5 Who Am I? Blog 19: Mitchmas (25): The Mitchell Project (Part 2)

 Mitchmas (25): The Mitchell Project (Part 2)

My 25th birthday was just last week and for a long time, my birthday has been referred to as Mitchmas! The weekend that Lauren’s other guy was in town, was the week before Mitchmas. That same weekend, My “sisters” started their week-long family vacation. Since Mitchmas fell on a Friday and their vacation ended that same day, my “sisters”, (minus Kid) Marshall, James, and I planned to go out after my family dinner.

After I drove home from work, I drove to Noah’s apartment (which is about a block away from mine and Shane’s) and we waited for Lori to arrive. Once she did, we hung out for a while, and then we left to meet my family for dinner at Buca di Beppo. When we arrived I learned that my childhood neighbors Stephen, Robin, and their daughter Megan were coming too!

After dinner we went to my parent’s house, the girls, Marshall and James showed up, I opened presents and we had some cake. By the time we had actually gone out, it was around 11:30. We went to a bar called Julep first. After a few drinks, we decided to go to a club called Seesaw that August has been suggesting since 2019. On the walk there Arden asked me, “Hey Mitchie, what happened with Lauren?”

I started to catch her up on what she had missed, but I didn’t have time to finish before we got to Seesaw and it was way too loud to finish the story inside. When we left at 2 AM I continued the story and finished when we got to the car. At some point during the drive back to our parents’ houses, I said, “Well, back to the dating apps!”

The girls openly objected, but because it was so late and we were all kind of tired, they knew that we weren’t gonna get anywhere that night. As I depicted in “The Greattastic Adventurers: Miracle Child” my “sisters” and I spent a lot of time-fighting in our childhood. In the book, I only imply that there was a resolution to the main fight of the story. The way we resolved the issue was by making a contract that we all had to sign.

The day after Mitchmas, Marshall and I went to my “sister's” parent’s house. When we got there my “sisters” decided to defend their reasoning on why I shouldn’t go back on to dating apps. They looked up, “what happens to the male body after turning 25!” The girls were poking at my ego… Not to be cruel, but to prove a point.

I tend to base my self-worth on the people around me. Basically, when people are around I’m the most confident person in the room, but when it’s just me, I tend to focus on all the negative things about me. While my goal for the season is to figure out who I am, the point that the girls were making was that I’ve been looking for it in all the wrong places. From the very beginning of this season, I threw myself into a relationship with Gabby in an attempt to find out who I am based on that relationship and after that ended I tried to do the same with Lauren.

After thinking about it a little more I realized that the girls weren’t wrong. I asked them what I should do. We decided that I should start working on myself and they would be my accountability partners. Kid sat down, and in beautiful calligraphy wrote up a contract/list of things that I should work on during my 25th year. The list reads as follows:

The Mitchell Project

1. Work out 4-5 days per week

2. Listen to podcasts

3. Set intentions/daily affirmations

4. Experiment with style

5. BE INTENTIONAL!!

6. Time management/limit screen time

Have a Greattastic day and be safe 

J. Mitchie Ulibarri

Season 5 Who Am I? Blog 18 The Other Guy (Part 1)

 The Other Guy (Part 1)

As I’ve mentioned before I broke up with my most recent girlfriend Gabby on my family's summer vacation this year (Swimmer's Ear). I have also talked about the fact that the break-up unearthed a few insecurities (Come To My Office).  While I knew I wanted to fix those insecurities, I didn't really know how. Another thing that I haven't talked about yet, but I feel is important, is my relationship with Gabby was essentially just a crush… I never fell in love with her. This makes it even more complicated because I don't know why I'm sad since I don't miss her romantically.

I know I've talked about this a lot, but my relationship before the one with Gabby, ended with me getting a restraining order. Well, she and I broke up on August 5th of last year. At the end of July with the anniversary of that break-up, the stalking, and all of the other trauma I experienced coming up, I got really upset. That fused with my insecurities about the Gabby situation and caused me to spiral. I decided that the best way to cope with the spiral was to get back on the dating apps (cuz that's healthy).

Almost immediately, I matched with a girl named Lauren. I asked Lauren what her favorite kind of music was, and she said that alternative rock was one of them. I told her that my brother is in a fairly successful alt-rock band. She asked for the band’s name, I told her Cousin Simple, and this led to the reveal that Lauren's sister almost went to prom with Ryan! We continued messaging and I found out that she knows a ton of people that I know from grade school cuz she went to high school with them. I thought to myself, if she was crazy on any level, because of our mutual connections I would have at least heard about it at this point! Feeling confident and safe, I decided to ask her on a date.

On Monday, August 8th, Lauren and I met up at a restaurant. We had decided just to meet at the restaurant’s bar, get a few drinks, and get to know each other. Now I'm a bit of a lightweight and I still needed to drive home. We both finished our second drink and when the bartender came back around, Lauren asked for her third. The bartender looked at me, and I asked for a water. When Lauren asked why I was getting water, I said, “Well, with this ending soon…”

“Awww, you want this to end soon?” she interrupted.

“I mean no,” I replied, “but I need to start coming down so I can drive home without dying!”

The more alcohol that I consume, the more autistic I get because I'm not as worried about masking my autism (not that I worry about it a lot anyway). So when I said, “I need to start coming down so I can drive home without dying!” I was a little more jumpy than I had been before.

“You were a little far away when you said that…” she said.

I looked at her and said, “Do you want me to come closer?”

After we kissed, we both felt a little more confident, so we started talking a bit more openly. During this time she asked me if I was seeing anyone else. “No,” I replied, “are you?” There was in fact another guy. I wasn't uncomfortable with that as dating around is normal… The issue was this guy lives in Pittsburgh and because they had never met before he was coming to Columbus on Wednesday and staying until Sunday. Lauren said that it was between me and this guy and she would choose the next week.

I met up with her one more time before she met this other guy and we texted sporadically, while they were hanging out. I kind of got the feeling that she was leading me on. They ended up having a fight in the middle of the weekend so he left early. Despite that, however, my suspicions were confirmed when she told me the next week that she was not interested in a relationship with me. Now obviously Lauren doesn't owe me a relationship, but I was upset that she didn't come out and say that she wasn't interested earlier, since it was so obvious. I'm not saying any of this to attack Lauren, she's actually a really nice person and I could see us being friends. The only reason I bring any of this up is so you understand how I was feeling leading into my birthday…

To be continued…

Season 5 Who Am I? Blog 17: After 2 Years

 After 2 Years

Towards the end of last school year, I returned to my High School and did some public speaking. In the installment I did about that event, I introduced you to Dr. Brooks. As a refresher, Dr. Brooks' son is one of my brother Luke's best friends, and when I started Rules for a Greattastic Life in 2019 she heard about it. She asked if I wanted to speak at her university class that teaches aspiring teachers about inclusive practices. I said yes and that started my public speaking career, as well as Dr. Brooks’ and my mentor-mentee relationship! Now, you may be asking, “If Dr. Brooks has been your mentor since you started Rules for a Greattastic Life, why are you just now introducing her 5 Seasons later?”

I spoke in her class for the first time in May of 2019 and, at the time, I did not have my driver's license, so Dr. Brooks drove me back to my parents house after my presentation. “You know,” I said to her on the drive, “I've been considering using Rules for a Greattastic Life, and any books that I write to jumpstart a public speaking career!”

Noting the positive feedback that she received from her students about my presentation and my desire to do public speaking, she later offered for me to come and speak in her class again. The summer after my first presentation, I dropped out of college, but I still wanted to be a teacher. While I would get my current job soon after, there were a couple months there where I didn’t think I would make it into education. I told Dr. Brooks about my challenges and she offered to help me update my résumé and support me with my next steps in entering the world of education.

We met up at Panera and after we had finished working Dr. Brooks asked, “Do you know what OCALICON is?” When I asked her to tell me more, she talked about how OCALI stands for the Ohio Center for Autism and Low Incidence disabilities. It is a local nonprofit organization with the mission of, “inspiring change and promoting access to opportunities for people with disabilities.” OCALICON is an annual convention sponsored by this organization with speakers to promote awareness about students with autism and low incidence disabilities. In fact, my friend Noah spoke at OCALICON in 2017 and 2018.

Dr. Brooks talked about the positive impact that my presentation had in her class and proposed that we do some research to look at how the presentation would affect the learning of students in her class. She would set this up and collected some data. Using the research we could apply to speak at OCALICON 2020. Since OCALICON happens over three days, the plan was that I would spend the time when I was not speaking, mingling with other attendees and presenters to get my foot in the door. I thought it was an amazing idea and agreed!

For obvious reasons, OCALICON did not happen in 2020. And, while we did not get accepted to speak for the 2021 conference I can finally say after two years we will be presenting there this fall!  The title of our presentation will be, “Using Contact-Based Interventions to Create Inclusive Learning Spaces.” We also have a grad student (who just so happens to be Noah's soccer coach, Katie) presenting with us, as well! Maybe someday, we’ll write about it, too, but I’ll let you know when and if that happens.

While I'm slightly disappointed that it's an online event, I'm very excited to even have the chance to do it! OCALICONLINE will happen November 15th through the 18th 2022. More information about the conference can be found at https://conference.ocali.org/

I don't know what day our segment will be posted yet, but I will let you know when I have that information!

Have a Greattastic day and be safe! 

J. Mitchie Ulibarri