All was going quite well upon my return to win back the love of my life. Within a week I found an apartment. The day after I moved in I found a job as well. Angie and I were spending all of our time together, and all seemed merry and right.
This lasted for a little while, but there was a strange underlying something that was amiss. She and I were definitely not as we had been, but things seemed to still be dandy and fine at the same time. We’d snuggle up for movies, she’d found a great job that finally gave her an out from the food service industry and into gardening which she truly loves, but the gears seemed slowly ticking with regular life. For one, my job was not the pay I was used to, making about a third of what I had been, and the apartment was great but well out of my bounds. These were just additives to what the real project was; Operation: Rekindle.
We spent much more time with her family which was nice. Her brother came in from Texas for a visit before a Siberian adventure and all the Denver siblings gathered at her sister’s house for a grand dinner. The evening before that we’d gone to Lakeside, a local amusement park Angie used to work at, with all of them and her six year old niece. Family was emanating in the air, and it was something Ang and I have talked loads about, but still there were missing parts for what was needed between us.
At the end of May I abruptly gave up my expensive apartment to move in with Ang. We’d been getting along great, and most of my time was at her place anyway, so it seemed like the best thing to do. Two days into living there, though, a friend of hers came to visit and we all hit the bars in celebration. It was there that we were finally able to voice what was lacking. For all that we loved each other and made a great pair we were not in love with each other. This was the major event that took place the evening of June 2nd.
There were no butterflies in the stomach, or swirling head emotions that we needed. Evermore confusion set in on me as I wondered if it had to do with this strange emotional psychosis I discovered driving me back to Denver, or if it was simply a friendship we were glorifying into full on love? After that night it seemed clear to me, then, that since I’d come back to win Angie back, had done so and then realized it wasn’t going to work, what needed to be done was to return to what I had been doing. I’d finish the walk.
I went to work that day and told them I needed to quit and that I was returning to Laramie to finish the walk. I couldn’t put in a two week notice because I had places to be at certain times, mainly Seattle to meet my mother, sister and aunts for a fun reunion at the end of August. Everyone understood and I returned to Angie at home where we discussed the whole thing. At first she didn’t want me to go, but the more I explained not only that I wanted to complete it, but I’d been dreaming about it quite often since about a week after I got back, and needed to at least complete something in my life, she began to see it my way. We had a fantastic afternoon going to dinner then she bought me a book for a going away present. We truly were friends.
I packed all night and the next day she drove me to the bus station and I returned to my quest, now with a new goal in mind to figure myself out.