Today, we’d like to introduce you to Michelle and John Miller.
Hi Michelle and John, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today.
Our story is quite a bit complex and convoluted. In your life, there are millions of good and bad experiences that help mold you into who you are today. The details of each experience that really directed us would be far too many pages for this interview, however, there were many signs that pointed us to where we are going based on our earlier lives. Things that we didn’t initially see were important or how they would play into our future.
To simplify our story: all the pieces were in chaos for most of our lives, started to stabilize when we met each other, and finally became stable ground in 2022. From there, we have kept trying to build up! Both of us had drastically different childhoods: John was from a family of 10 kids in Colorado while Michelle came from a family of 3 but was the only child for 12 years in California. His education focused on communicating and being social while I was forced to learn executive functioning skills. Because we are Autistic, that was both torture and a blessing.
We each ended up being decent enough at those skills to mask our struggles, but now that we have each other, we can rely on the other to step in and help in areas where we have little to no skill. We joke that we each have half a brain and together we make a fully functional person. By working together we were able to start our own business!
Our lives before meeting each other were very lonely, often being ignored or overlooked which resulted in us having very vibrant inner minds. Once we met, we clicked. Normally we are completely drained within an hour of being around people (even around people we enjoy spending time with). When John and I met, we didn’t even realize we had spent 5 hours together by the time we needed to leave. Talking was just so natural and unfiltered, and ever since then, we had been stuck at the hip. Every day we get to spend time with our best friend! What’s better than that?!
We are also each other’s other half of the brain so we don’t function well without each other. We’ve rarely been apart and work extremely well together, resulting in us searching for jobs where we can work together. Let’s just say that’s not a normal thing and was very difficult to explain to employers. Although there are some struggles, it’s the biggest blessing we have ever had and we hope to keep going by having our own home business.
We are also both very artistic and creative which gets us into a lot of different projects. We were really impacted by that saying: “You can do anything but you can’t do everything” so we are trying to limit ourselves to what is doable. But we are also always looking for people to collaborate with us as we have many ideas that we just don’t have the time, energy, or skills to do on our own.
Our business “OnOurTrail” grew from us and our life experiences. It branches out into different areas: the art we create, the skills we have gained, the knowledge and experience we carry, and so much more. We have so many ideas and we want to help better people’s lives with our skills and experiences. Because of the stories and rough experiences we’ve had, we realize there are many people who have never gone through some of the situations we had to survive, which gives us insight into an aspect of life that others may miss.
We wish to lessen the amount of suffering around us as much as we can by sharing what we’ve learned through our hardships. We understand the struggles of trying to survive on your own and attempting to build a community that helps out each other. No one person can do it alone and each of us requires others to help us. Even those on welfare who may not interact with or encounter people, still rely on the community to provide the funds that support their welfare.
Through our business, not only do we connect people to paid services/products, but we also hope that we can help with any advice, support, or resources to better your situation to where you want it to be. It’s optional but we sincerely want to help wherever we can and want to have you leave our website with more value than you would have expected.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It has been a lot of ups and downs. We have survived toxic environments, abuse, homelessness, poverty, being overlooked and ignored even in current society, being silenced for being neurodivergent, being thrown under the bus to save our boss’s skin multiple times, and more. With all that being said, we have experienced a lot in life and not only want to live better lives ourselves, but we also wish to help others who are going through the same experiences.
We want to use our business to help find and connect to those who may need our help specifically. It’s hard to listen and trust in those who haven’t gone through what you have, but finding someone who has, and is noticeably improving is encouraging. We don’t want to help in terms of “we will tell you what to do to get better” but more of “We will give you guidance and take steps alongside you based on what you discover about yourself and your unique situation”. Our goal is to grow personally and help others grow through our skills, talents, and experiences.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
We work on a large variety of projects, ranging from art installations, teaching free art classes at The Next Us every month, blogging, designing and printing stickers, painting, papercut artwork, and so much more. We like to bounce between hype fixations, learning about each art style or design function to incorporate it into our business.
Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
I wouldn’t say that luck has had a huge factor in our lives and business. We’ve had our hardships, but overcoming them has made us better equipped for the future. We’ve been incredibly blessed to have the life experiences that we have had, and we hope our story helps to encourage others going through the same things.
Pricing:
- Support us on Ko-Fi, (ko-fi.com/onourtrail) for 10$ per month, and gain access to Social media shout-outs, Behind-the-scenes, Exclusive content, Digital assets, and Art class videos!
Contact Info:
- Website: onourtrail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/onourtrail/?hl=en
- Other: ko-fi.com/onourtrail
Image Credits
Vita Brevis Fine Art and Candice Craft
