The easy questions, the hard answers.

“So what brought you to Colorado?”

Unprepared, totally unprepared to hear and try to answer this question over and over at the college alumni event. Unprepared, totally unprepared to handle the aftermath of holding back tears for several hours during the event.

The same year I moved to Colorado, the movie Good Will Hunting won a couple Oscars. The line in that movie resonated with me, the line I carried with me for the next twelve years was when Will tells Sean he’s going to see about a girl, repeating what Sean had told him about his deceased wife earlier with regards to missing Game 6 of the 1975 World Series.

I was going to see about a boy, see what would happen if our long-distance relationship became a live-in one. We stuck together for twelve years, through thick and thin. Tough times, of course we had them, especially in couple years before all the illness and surgery mess. I thought we had turned a corner somewhere in between the emergency situation and the second surgery that resolved years of chronic pelvic pain.

Instead, here I was telling people that I followed the man, practically a Colorado native, from whom I was now separated.

“Are you planning to stay in Colorado, then?”

It only makes sense that this question would follow the answer to the first question. And yet, still unprepared, totally unprepared to answer the question or to handle the aftermath of continuing to hold back tears.

I don’t know the answer to that one. The job I began last month is scheduled to last two years, according to the term of the grant. When I took it, I figured it would give me enough time to develop a plan on what to do in a couple years when things are more settled.

The thing is, there are few of “my people” here. You might not think so if you view the videos filmed from Friday night out with the blogging pals, or if you see me chatting with former co-workers who became reliable and caring friends, but I am longing for the hugs and the smiles and the laughter of those who know me most back in Wisconsin. The people who knew me before he came along, the ones who have been so incredibly kind and wonderful these past few months.

A few weeks back, I came close to running into friends of his, not once but twice, at a local festival; after the second time, I turned right around to go back to the crappy little apartment to cry. I walk around in fear that I will encounter more of “his people”. If that happens, I will just completely fall apart, worse than I have since that alumni event.

You see, most of the people who saw me through the terrible mess of illness and surgeries were “his people” as they were close and could drop everything to help or listen or distract, while “my people” were not as able to rush out a thousand miles away in winter.

Yes, the blogging pals are here and the former co-workers turned good friends are here, and I am sure I would miss them terribly. However, even some of them encourage me to consider going back to “my people”, in spite of my excuses of my health care team being awesome here and oh, how I would miss the mountains and the milder winters.

It’s kind of funny in a way. I waited thirteen years for an alumni event to come to Denver and now I may well be returning to the Midwest within a year or two.