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
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