Season 7 Be An Advocate Blog 6: Melody And Rob's Wedding

 Melody And Rob's Wedding

As you may recall, back in June of 2021, I was a groomsman in my childhood neighbor Greg's wedding (Groomsmen, Can You Please Teach Me How To Dance, & Greg's Wedding Parts 1, 2, and 3). At that time, I had just recently started dating Ishana. Now, Greg and his sister Melody had never met any of my previous girlfriends, so the fact that I was in a relationship was a huge topic of conversation with the wedding party during the wedding weekend. Because Melody was the only bridesmaid that I really knew on any level, we were seated at the same table during the reception.

After Greg and his bride, Temi had their first dance, but before the speeches began, Melody suggested that we should go on a double date when we got back to Columbus. I ended up breaking up with Ishana shortly thereafter, so the double date didn't happen. Melody and I finally met up about 9 months later (early March 2022), and she introduced me to her boyfriend, Rob. Over the last two years, I have become good friends with Rob, and I will see Melody and Rob at some of their church events, or we will get something to eat. Now over the last year, while I have talked to Melody, Rob, and Greg about Paige, none of them had met her. So while I was excited when I got invited to Melody and Rob’s wedding, I was extra excited when I found out Paige was allowed to come.

Last Saturday, March 2nd, 2024, Mom dropped Paige and me off at the venue at about 4:00 p.m. The ceremony started at 4:30 and after everyone processed in I experienced one of the most beautiful sights I've ever witnessed. I mentioned that Melody, Rob, and I will see each other, but we have individual friendships. Like Melody and I have known each other for years, Rob and I will hang out on our own, so when I see them together, it's like, “Hey, it's Rob… and oh my gosh, Melody!” Obviously I knew that they were dating, but because I'm not part of their relationship and we have slightly separate friendships, it was always like a background fact. I hope I explained that well. I’m honestly not sure if I did. Anyway, seeing the faith that they have in God and how much they love each other was incredibly beautiful!

During the reception, I Introduced Paige to Greg, his and Melody’s little brother, Nathan, and their mom. When Greg figured out who she was, a look of pure glee fell across his face, and he said, “Let me know if you want to hear any embarrassing stories about 10-year-old Mitchell.” He then proceeded to tell her my deepest darkest secret, and now she will never stop making fun of me. Eventually, Paige introduced herself to Melody and Rob, and I was really happy that everyone finally got to meet her!

Now, as you might know from my first book, The Greattastic Adventures: Miracle Child, growing up, Melody and I were barely friends. Admittedly, in the book and its upcoming sequels, I had to cut out most of our relationship, but generally speaking, Greg was always my friend, and Melody was always my “sister” Aspen’s friend. I've always taken the stance that if I'm writing about you, I love you… I'm a storyteller; it's the highest form of respect I can give you. But the love that I had for “Young Melody'' was always just an extension of my love for Aspen or Greg. And even her and Aspen's friendship eventually fizzled out. Once Greg went off to college and Melody moved off of Meadow Park Drive, I honestly never thought I would see her again.

I was super proud to be a groomsman at Greg's wedding. As a kid, I was never the kindest person to him and the fact that he chose me to be in his wedding party in spite of that is something that I will never stop being thankful for. In that same vein, I'm so thankful that I reconnected with Melody, and she introduced me to Rob. They're not people who I ever would have imagined being in my adult life, but I am so thankful that they are and I'm so glad that we are close enough that they invited me to be part of their special day.

Congratulations, Melody and Rob, I can't wait to see what Greatastic things come next for you!

J. Mitchie Ulibarri

Season 7 Be An Advocate Blog 5: 6 Degrees Of Separation

 6 Degrees Of Separation

In very basic terms, the theory of six degrees of separation states that any one person is six connections (or less) away from anyone else. To be fair, in the age of social media, it's probably more like three connections or less, but I digress. I tend to abuse the law of six degrees of separation. We'll come back to that later, but I was once described by a friend as someone who “knows everybody on a ‘I know a guy through a guy’ basis.”

On President's Day, August drove me to the Denver Airport to catch my flight back to Columbus. I'm just going to take a moment to say something that I've never had a chance to before. I don't get super overstimulated as often as the media portrays autistic individuals getting overstimulated. Yeah some bright lights affect me, and my hearing has been a bit more sensitive since my surgery, but the only thing that actually consistently overstimulates me, to the point of an Autism meltdown (besides conflict), is airport security. Like having only flown in a post 911 world, I completely understand the need for security, but I do want to cry every time I go through.

Anyways, once I had gotten through security (finally) I found my gate. Now, I had to be at work by 8:00 the next morning. My flight was scheduled to get into Columbus at 11:00 p.m., Ohio time. And let's be honest, it was probably going to be delayed a little bit. Knowing that there was no way I would have time to eat when I got home, I searched around the airport to find a snack. Once I got back to my gate, I saw a woman that I thought I recognized.

When I was in grade school at Our Lady of Peace (OLP), I had a classmate who we're going to call Evan Hahn. Evan had an older sister, and she was like one or two grades above us. This woman had a striking resemblance to Evan’s sister. So I walked up, sat down next to her, and asked, “Hi, my name is Mitchell. Do you happen to know Evan Hahn?”

“Hi Mitchell, I’m Lindsay! Yeah, I know him!” she replied.

“Are you his sister?” I pressed.

“Haha, no,” she continued. “I went to high school with him.”

I knew a ton of people who went to high school with Evan. This includes my friend, Anna, and a ton of other people from OLP, August, and Arden (for a brief period of time), two of my girlfriend Paige's cousins, my childhood neighbor Greg, and a handful of others. As Lindsay and I continued our conversation, I found out that she knew pretty much everyone just listed, either from church, grade, middle, or high school, or just because their parents were friends. I also found out that she was really good friends with some of the families of my friends who died during the events of, Once In A Lifetime: A Song For Sam. I also found out that the reason she had been in Colorado was because she had had a business trip the week before. 

As I said earlier, I feel like I’ve abused the six degrees of separation law in my life. Here are a few examples: My roommate Shane and I grew up three streets away from each other and went to the same preschool and high school before we met. My friend Noah's soccer coach, Katie, knew one of my teaching mentors, Mr. Livingston, worked with my public speaking mentor Dr. Brooks, and obviously knows Noah. Mom went to high school with a woman named Jo Hannah, who happens to be a big name in the special education world in Ohio, and I have done some work with her! And finally the only reason Paige and I know each other is because our brothers went to school together, and as a weird little cherry on top we just found out fairly recently that our moms had the same major and were in college classes together!

I don't think I will ever meet Lindsay again. We have been on the outskirts of each other's lives for about 20 years, for the majority of that time we have been within a 10 mile radius of each other, and it took us being 1,264 miles away from home to actually meet. But I think our meeting teaches a good lesson. So many things had to happen for this meeting to pan out the way it did:

Firstly in the early 2000s, I had to meet Evan and know of his sister. In the summer of 2019, Arden had to move to Colorado, and Nicholas had to pop my eardrum. In 2021, August had to follow in Arden's footsteps and move to Colorado. I had to get the worst ear infection of my life in 2022 as a result of that eardrum injury, and that led me to try to figure out what was wrong. At the same time as the ear infection, August had to break up with her ex-boyfriend Ben, start dating her current husband Daniel, and she had to get pregnant at the beginning of 2023. I had to get my ear surgery, exactly a month after Emerald was born, and I had to misunderstand that I couldn't fly for 7 weeks, so I bought my ticket for President's Day weekend as opposed to Martin Luther King Day weekend. Then Lindsay had to be assigned the business trip, make the decision to stay for the weekend, and get the exact same flight home that I did. Yes, Lindsay and I made choices, but most of them were in reaction to things that were happening around us. I guess what I'm saying is sometimes you just need to go with the flow and eventually you will end up exactly where you need to be.

Have a Greattastic day and be safe!

J. Mitchie Ulibarri