Season 7 To Be An Advocate Blog 14: Blind Soccer Practice

 Blind Soccer Practice

As I have mentioned before, ever since I met Noah in the fall of 2019, it has been a dream of his to play on the National Blind Soccer team at the Paralympics in 2028. For the last few years, Noah has been on the team, and a few months ago, he became a 2024 Sport Ambassador for the United States Association of Blind Athletes (USABA). About 2 years ago Noah asked Luke to be a goalie for a game (goalies are sighted). I wrote an installment about that event called Blind Soccer.

There are a ton of camps throughout the entire year for the National Blind Soccer team. Noah injured his knee in early 2023, and then I pushed him a little too hard when Cousin Simple played the Newport shortly after that (Columbus Against The World). Because of that injury, Noah could not attend any of the camps last year, but he's feeling better now. The first camp in a year that Noah could go to was the first week of June, and he wanted to practice with my brothers, Paige and I before he went.

On Tuesday, June 4th, 2024, Paige and I got ready, called my brothers to decide on a place to meet, and then drove to pick up Noah at 7:30. I parked at the duck pond by my parents' house, and Ryan, Luke, and Josh walked into the parking lot just as we got out of my car. After everyone said hello, we walked to a park next to the duck pond.

Now, I’m not a big sports guy. Luke was only the goalie during the game I wrote about, and Ryan, Paige, and Josh weren't there, so Noah had to explain the rules. The soccer ball is basically a baby rattle, so whenever it's kicked, the beads move around so the players can hear where it is. Other than that, there are only two differences between blind soccer and the original game (at least for the sake of this installment). The first thing is that all players must say “Voy” over and over when they approach the ball. Secondly, if a player is about to pass the ball to someone, they need to call that person. For example, if I was going to pass to Noah, I would say: Noah! And he would respond: Noah here. And then I would kick the ball.

With those two stipulations in place, we ran a few drills and had a few mini scrimmages. As I said, I’m not a big sports guy, so I don’t think I’m super qualified to explain everything that we did, but we had a fun time and hopefully helped Noah prepare for his camp.

As you may know, last fall I finished my next two books. Because of complications with my mic. I’m about a month behind on this series, and at the time of this installment, my editor hadn’t gotten started yet. As a result, I’ve been very pent up for the last year since I couldn’t do anything with them.

I’ve published two books already, so I know that publishing a book is a lot of hard work, but I’ve felt very discouraged. But after watching Noah have this injury for a year and working through it to achieve his goal, he has inspired me to keep pushing through. I think people tend to want things done the quick and easy way, even though deep down, they know that's not the best option. When you get stuck in one of those moods, it's best to look to the people around you for encouragement.

Have a Greattastic Day and be Safe

J. Mitchie Ulibarri

Season 7 To Be An Advocate Blog 13: Emotional Reset

 Season 7 Blog 13: Emotional Reset

Over the two weeks between when Paige and I moved in together and me releasing the The Truth About War Of The Roommates trilogy, a lot happened. Just to get this out of the way, I'm recording the podcast in my parents’ basement because it's impractical to record at Paige and Kid’s apartment just because it's right off of a busy street, and we're moving to another apartment in August anyway. Because it wasn't exactly how I usually had to set up, I stretched my mic too far while recording and accidentally damaged it, which is why it took two weeks.

The day after Paige and I moved in together, Sunday, May 19th, we went with my family to my cousins, the Mitrey’s House, to celebrate Nicholas' graduation from high school. We ate, played euchre with the cousins, and got ice cream.

Now, even though I moved out on the 18th, my lease with Shane was not up until the 31st. In other words, I was still tying up some loose ends throughout those first two weeks. I was dealing with some of those loose ends on Monday, May 20th, when my childhood neighbor, Greg, texted me. He said that he and his wife, Temi, and their daughter were in town for a week and asked if we wanted to meet up.

After some discussion with Paige, we decided to have Greg, Temi, the baby, Greg’s sister Melody, and her new husband Rob over to the apartment on Thursday, the 23rd. It was really cool because, while Paige had met everyone except for Temi before, it was at Melody and Rob's wedding, so they didn't really get to know her, and we finally got to meet the baby!

Memorial Day weekend was Paige's annual family pig roast, and it just so happened that one of her cousins got married over the weekend as well. On top of that, my grandpa, Pop-pop, his partner, Sara, and my cousin Austin were in town, so there were a few family dinners at my parents. Needless to say, we were very busy, but it was really fun to spend time with so much family. The following week was pretty much full of recovering from the weekend, finishing stuff up at my old apartment, and being slightly stressed because I was a week behind in this series.

I know that there was not a lot for me to write about for this installment, but that’s kind of the point. See, a relationship is hard work for anyone, not to mention someone with Autism. With how intense my job is, the drama with Shane, and how stressed I was, I had to work extra hard on my relationship with Paige, and as a result, I started slacking in my other relationships. Now that the war of the roommates saga is more or less behind me, I can finally take a breath and emotionally reset.

To that end, I have two general goals for this summer. 1. I want to work on my relationship with Paige while living together. 2. More to the point, but not completely unconnected, I want to take time for the other people in my life as well.

Have a Greattastic Day and be safe!

J. Mitchie Ulibarri

Season 7 To Be An Advocate Blog 12: The Truth About War Of The Roommates Part 3: Eviction Notice

 The Truth About War Of The Roommates Part 3: Eviction Notice

I did, in fact, fix things with Shane, as I depicted in the installment Dancing With Our Stars, and everything was fine until I started dating Paige. I was uncomfortable having her at my apartment because of what happened between Gabby and Shane, so she and I spent a lot of time hanging out at my parent's house, and after I would drop her off, it was just easier to sleep at my parent's house because I had been there all day. As I explained at the end of part 2, I started to lie to everyone in my life about where I was staying and I was trying to use this series to portray a different reality of the situation to make myself feel better.

In October 2023, maintenance came into our apartment (unannounced). They found that Shane had not been cleaning the bathroom, so it was really gross. They also said they replaced my closet doors since they were missing. We took them off and put them in the basement when I moved in because I put my dresser inside the closet to make my room function better. We had to pay for the bathroom cleanup and the “missing” closet doors. I paid my portion right away, even though the doors were not missing and could easily be put back in place.

I hated paying rent at a place I wasn’t staying at, but I justified it because I knew it would be over soon. You see, Paige and I were planning on moving into a new apartment after her lease was up in July. That got moved to May because that’s when my lease was up, and Kid is traveling for the summer again this year. So the plan was for me to sublease from Kid, and then Paige and I would move into a new apartment in August.

On Monday, March 11, 2024, Paige and I started working on the paperwork to get approved for an apartment for after her and Kid’s lease was up. Now that Friday, March 15, was S.M.’s 26th birthday and the one-year anniversary of my publishing my second book, Once In A Lifetime: A Song For Sam about her. I wrote a blog (that I didn’t end up publishing because of the events of this installment) to celebrate both her birthday and the anniversary.

The only thing I used my apartment for was to record my podcast since I had everything set up there. On Saturday the 16th, early in the morning, I drove to my apartment to record the blog for the podcast. As I walked up to the door, I noticed a yellow paper taped to it. It was an eviction notice that had been posted the previous Tuesday. It said that if we did not pay the money we owed by Friday we had to be out by the following Wednesday.

I freaked out immediately, and I would like to take this moment to apologize (again), to my parents and Paige for the frantic phone calls in which I screamed at all three of them out of sheer stress. Once my parents had tried and failed to calm me down, they got in contact with Shane’s parents while I was on the phone with Paige. It turned out that Shane had seen the notice but thought that it had to be a mistake because he was paying his rent, even though he hadn’t paid the bathroom fee. His parents paid his bill, and we didn’t get evicted! 

Writing this three-parter was more for therapeutic purposes than any installment I've written before. I’m not writing any of this to say that I hate Shane. Quite the opposite, actually. Ever since Shane and I moved in together, I have seen him as a permanent fixture in my life. But the stress of having to basically pay for him to live there and keeping it a secret took a major toll on my mental health. I am calling this season to be an advocate, in reference to the nonprofit I’m trying to start. But if this situation has taught me anything, it’s that I need to work on my self-advocacy too. I mean, if I can’t advocate for myself, how am I supposed to advocate for others?

Kid’s flight to Costa Rica was on Saturday, May 18th. That morning my brothers, Luke and Josh, and my former coworker Clo, helped Paige and I move me into Paige’s apartment. After we had got all my stuff in and everybody else was gone I reflected on the last two years. Obviously, my time living with Shane was not ideal, but I do not regret it. I will always be grateful for my friendship with Shane, and I’m looking forward to my next chapter, living with Paige.

Have a Greattastic day and be Safe!

J. Mitchie Ulibarri

Season 7 To Be An Advocate Blog 11: The Truth About War Of The Roommates Part 2: The Least Debacle

 The Truth About War Of The Roommates Part 2: The Lease Debacle

Shane was initially on the lease on his own. When I moved in in 2022, I was an addendum to that original lease. There's nothing much to talk about here… I got approved to move in, signed the addendum, moved in, and I thought that would be the end of it. Spoiler alert: it wasn't.

When I spoke at OCALICONLINE 2022 (OCALICONLINE-Only One Place I Can Go), I took the entire week off of work. Now at this point, Shane and I were in Era 2 of War Of The Roommates. As a refresher, Jessica had started having issues with me, which caused Shane and I to start having issues, even though we had worked through them before.

Between OCALICONLINE sessions, I was searching for new apartments because I was over all the drama. But I didn’t know when my lease was up. There were 15-minute breaks between each session, and I called my landlord’s office at one of those times. The receptionist said she would find it and get back to me.

During the next session, I got a callback but let it go to voicemail so I could pay attention. Basically, what had happened was when I initially signed the addendum, Shane didn’t sign it, and if I wanted to keep living there we needed to sign it again. 

I thought this was an amazing opportunity. I had no legal ties to the apartment, and I started frantically looking for new apartments so I could move out asap. Before I had a chance to find a new apartment, however, Dad and I had a conversation. “You know,” he said after I had told him about the situation, “you should try to make it work with Shane.”

“Why?” I asked.

“You haven’t really tried to fix things with him yet, and he has Down Syndrome. He can’t really help it. With the advocacy you’re trying to do, it will be good practice to continue to live with him,” Dad explained.

Now, my dad is one of the most successful people I know. He moved to Columbus at 17, and after graduating college and marrying Mom, he started a business from nothing that has supported my family since before I was born. He has the ability to solve any problem that life throws at him in the most creative way possible. Sometimes, I think he gets frustrated that no one else in the world solves problems the way he can.

What I’m saying is if he were in my position, he could have lived with Shane and worked through all of the issues that Shane and I have had… but I’m not him. The only reason I stayed in the apartment was because I wanted to prove myself. Not just to Dad but to everyone. I wanted everyone to think that I was capable enough to survive on my own, and when I stopped staying at the apartment for a third time, I really felt like I was a failure. This is why I lied to everyone about staying at the apartment. The only people who knew the truth were my family, my “sisters” and Marshall, and Paige… And quite honestly, if I could have pulled it off without letting them know, I probably would have lied to them about it, too.

To be continued….

Season 7 To Be An Advocate Blog 10: The Truth About War Of The Roommates Part 1: The Battle Of Gabby

 The Truth About War Of The Roommates Part 1: The Battle Of Gabby

 In the installment I wrote about Paige and my one-year anniversary (Spring Break 2024 Part 1: Paige and my 1-Year Anniversary), I said that I’ve been super stressed for a while, and things came to a head shortly after Melody and Rob’s wedding. This three-parter is a complete depiction of that situation. I have been lying! To you, to people in my life, and frankly, to myself. I'm getting ahead of myself though, so let's start at the beginning. Here is the story of War Of The Roommates, as you, the audience, knows it:

I signed the lease to my Gleason Road Apartment in early 2022. My roommate, Shane, was already on the lease, and I was just added on. After I became the event coordinator for his engagement to his now fiancé Jessica, he and I started having problems. I started staying with my parents full-time again, but toward the end of the summer, we had a sit-down and fixed things. For the sake of these installments, I'm going to call this Era 1. After Shane and I fixed things, Jessica and I started having issues, and that led Shane and me to start having issues again, but we smoothed everything over in early 2023. I will call this Era 2. One thing happened in each of these eras that came together and created the secret Era 3. Just as sort of a table of contents: this installment will be about the event that happened in Era 1, part 2 will be about the event that happened in Era 2, and part 3 will be the fallout of Era 3’s creation.

Right at the beginning of Shane and my roommatehood, Shane met my “sisters,” Aspen and Kid. Shortly after he met them, he made a comment that made me a little uncomfortable bringing them around the apartment. Just to be clear, I know that Shane did not mean anything by what he said. He has Down Syndrome, and as a disabilities advocate, I tried not to hold it against him, but we did have a conversation about it.

In June of 2022, my girlfriend at the time, Gabby, came down to my area to have dinner with my family. In the installment I wrote about that event (Meet The Ulibarris), I explained that she got to my apartment at 3:00, and then I drove her around town and showed her things before dinner, as she had never been to my area. Shane can't drive, so I got the apartment parking spot. As I was the driver for the day, Gabby left her car in the parking spot.

After dinner, Gabby and I got into my car and drove back to my apartment. It had started raining for the second time that day while we were eating. As we drove, we talked about how well the dinner went, and we kept talking about it for a bit as I pulled up in front of my apartment. Once she got out of my car, I waited for her to pull out of my spot. It was taking her a while to drive away, and right when I was starting to question it Gabby started angrily storming back toward my car with a yellow piece of paper in her hands. Now, this was two years ago, and the paper was drenched, so all I really remember is how gross the paper was, but Gabby was upset because it said something along the lines of, “Get the F out of this parking spot. It's not yours!” 

I had told Shane that Gabby was coming over that night, but I did forget to tell him that she was parking in my spot. I just assumed that he would figure it out, process of elimination you know? I know that I should have communicated a little better, but at the time, it felt like he was just not respecting the women in my life, with or without the miscommunication. After Gabby left, I entered my apartment, and Shane and I got into a fight. I told him how upset she was, and he said, “I promise I'll apologize to her!” I was happy to let that be the solution. Unfortunately (at least for the sake of this situation), the next week, I went to Norris Lake with my family, and Gabby and I broke up while I was on that trip.

This issue died with my and Gabby's relationship, but it came back when Paige and I started dating. I know it's stupid and honestly a little immature to hold it against Shane, but I could never get comfortable having Paige at my apartment because of what happened between Shane and Gabby. And honestly, I think the only thing that would have made me feel better was if he apologized to Gabby, but I wasn't going to bring my ex back, just to fix this little thing. That would 1. be unrealistic and 2. not be fair to Paige or Gabby.

 To be continued…