I fell into a depression finally, a year later, burnt out on my optimism. The diner was the only familiar thing I had left in my life, but it was robotic. I would wander in every afternoon with a haggard, worn-out smile to my fellow workers. Getting through the day seemed to be the only alternative. I wasn’t even daydreaming anymore of better places or new opportunities. I needed a vacation. “Hey Sam,” I said to the manager one night. “What are the odds you’ll let me take next month off?” He raised an eyebrow before shooting back with “What are the odds you might need a new job?” I paused, looked out the window. The snow was beginning to melt all over the street, in thick puddles that appeared underfoot, soaking the men and women walking by. The sun shone off the standing water with a rare intensity, painful to my eyes. I turned back to Sam. “About one to one,” I said, smiling with the promise of freedom, the lure of the unknown knocking at my doorstep. I left the next day, put everything I owned in a storage unit, and dropped my apartment keys in the landlord’s mail slot, along with a handwritten note that just said: “no more.”

I spent the summer wandering around the state, staying with friends, working the odd job on a sugarbeet farm out east, or valet parking at the Royal Gorge. I tried my hand at rafting and mountain climbing, seeing the untrammeled sights of the Centennial state while they were still here. It was fun, that much was undeniable. But like everything else I’ve ever done, my wandering proved once again to grow old and stale with the boredom and unfulfillable temptation of any activity that would single-handedly make me happy. I was beginning to sense a theme. As long as my restlessness endured, I would find diversions to lure me on, but never the hope of building any kind of lasting satisfaction. So I found a pay videophone and called up Heather. When she answered, she looked just as casually beautiful as she always had. Just what I needed. “Hi Heather,” I began slowly, telling her about my last year, my writer’s life down in Denver, my summer of following my whim. On and on, until I finally took a deep breath just so I could say what I really wanted to say. “I’m starting to see that the reasons we split up had everything to do with my incessant need for novelty. And I’m tired of that. Can we maybe…try it again?” She laughed, the way only a ranching girl can, the kind of laughter that makes your heart want to roll around in a pile of hay. “Sure,” she said. “There’s a little empty trailer out back here, you can set up your writing desk in it.”