Greattasticly Ever After
So Paige and I are married! These last few months have been incredible and worth all of the stress of planning a freaking wedding. Before we continue the story, there is something that I would like to discuss about how this series is going to change moving forward. And the best way to do that is with a flashback.
When I started this series, I was already in the process of writing The Greattastic Adventures series. Knowing that in my head I broke this series into books as well. Season 1-3 is a book (called The Coronapocalypse), Season 4-6 is a book (called The Mitchell Project), and season 7-Now is a book (Called the Age Of Weddings). While I definitely didn't have it laid out back in 2019, initially I knew I wanted to end this version of the series with my and my (at the time imaginary) bride’s wedding/honeymoon.
Shortly after Paige and I started dating however, I was fully considering quitting writing. There was a lot going on at the time. A lot of changes. August was newly pregnant, and that was causing a lot of tension in the group and my support system was changing. Now the Andersons are still there for me to this day, but I was struggling to cope with those changes on top of the innate imposter syndrome that kind of comes with being a neurodivergent person. And Paige, well at the time, Paige and I were still in our honeymoon phase of dating. I trusted her with all my heart and I knew that I was going to marry her, but I didn't want to burden her with all of my insecurities.
In August 2023, Box Seats played a show at a Donatos’s on OSU’s campus.. It's a basement bar in the bottom of the pizza shop And while that's kind of weird, it's an amazing venue. Now because at this point I was so insecure I wasn't really sure if I was actually that great of a writer, and I really really wasn't sure if I was even going to finish both Greattastic Adventures Sequels.
Now in attendance at this Box Seats show was Will, the lead singer of Cousin Simple and Ryan's best friend. In my first book, I depicted an event in which I jumped into a duck pond because Will hyped me up way too much. That event led to me gaining my confidence at my new school when I was diagnosed with autism. What I'm saying is even before Cousin Simple, I have always looked up to Will. At the end of this Box Seats show, I hugged Will goodbye.
“Hey,” he said to me, “Paige told me that you were a keynote speaker a couple of months ago.” I, in fact, had been. The night before I spoke, Cousin Simple had a show and Paige went with my family without me since I was out of town. This was presumably when Paige told Will about it.
“Yeah” I said, “It was a state conference for The Council For Exceptional Children!”
“Oh yeah,” he said, “I think I saw that on your Instagram. I need to catch up a little bit on your podcast. But I’m really proud of all the stuff that you do and I love listening to it!”
This was a weirdly inspiring moment. I knew Will liked me as a friend, but I kind of thought it was a one-sided admiration. I didn't realize that he looked up to me too. Ever since this Will and I have had this weird bromance thing going. There's really no other way to describe it. Like neither of us have talked about it but, while I'm geeking out about Cousin Simple related stuff, he'll geek out about Greattastic stuff and Paige and my relationship in general (especially that early on). The idea that he was looking up to me too, kind of inspired me to continue writing. And I started to think about what this series would look like long-term. Eventually I came up with a plan.
Rules for a Greattastic Life would run until Paige and I got married/our honeymoon, and then after the series finale, there would be a brief break, and eventually it would return as a new series called Greattasticly Ever After. So The Greattastic Adventures is about my childhood with autism, Rules for a Greattastic Life is About my young adult life with autism, and Greattasticly Ever After will be about my life as a husband and father with autism. Now let me be very clear, Paige is not pregnant! But we are moving into a different period of our lives and much like before I hope that my stories will inspire other autistic people like myself and those in their lives!
Have a Greattastic Day and Be Safe
J. Mitchie Ulibarri, SBT
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