I met Angela my first month in Prince George actually…
I was in a night club with some of my new friends and she tried to squeeze past me to the bar; as I considered myself charming I asked if I could stop her to introduce myself but she answered with a snotty No and carried on. I assumed that was that but I soon caught her lurking nearby discussing me with her girlfriend. Once the bar closed and everyone had made their way to the nearby pizza joint I made a point of slipping by her table to steal a slice from her plate just to make a final impression and aggravate her a little more.
We always had a flirty love hate relationship whenever we crossed paths but she had a serious boyfriend the entire time I stayed in PG. I often called her late at night to chat her up and piss off the boy, but once I made the decision to move to Vancouver I assumed I would never see her again. Even then I made a point to call and chat now and again, and in October 1996 she surprised the hell out of me when she called to tell me she had dumped her boyfriend and she would be coming to stay with me for the weekend!
To this point in time we had never even kissed so a weekend together was a bit of a leap, but I did adore her and told her she was more than welcome. We had an electric chemistry and I fell madly in love with her from the start; by December I had essentially moved back to PG to be with her.
We planned a trip to come home to Edmonton for Christmas so she could meet my family and two things happened on that trip that would be prophetic of our entire relationship.
The first was that I proposed to her. Nothing at all romantic; she was sleeping in the passenger seat and the sight of her inspired me to wake her and propose. She opened her eyes, said “of course..” and went back to sleep. A sudden, erratic decision by two people in love but still strangers and unequipped and unprepared to deal with each other’s closeted demons…
The second event was much more traumatic and a definite sign of things to come. As we approached Edmonton she got steadily more nervous, finally erupting in a panic attack that turned into a violent rage with her trying to kick the windshield out from the inside. I finally managed to pull over and rushed to her side of the vehicle in an attempt to calm her down, but the erratic driving had alerted a cop who pulled over with us and it was he who managed to calm her down enough that we could continue on.
Once on our way it was like the tantrum had never happened, she was her sweet self again and started to chat away about how excited she was to almost be "home". It was so sudden and so bizarre that I laughed it off and we actually joked about it over the holidays. We made plans to get married on the anniversary of our first date, October 10, 1997 and my family was ecstatic.
"With A Bullet" Sam Roberts
Our love is dark thoughts as it is bright lights It's the sound of a teardrop falling down from a great height So don't let go, let waters flow
And babe you have nothing to fear for This is as real as the rain My love for you is as deep as a coalmine
You move like moonshine straight to my head This is a storyline we write from the same bed You had for sale a holy grail
And babe you have nothing to fear for This is as real as the rain My love for you is as deep as a coalmine
And our love is dark thoughts as it is bright lights And it's the sound of a teardrop falling down from a great height
And babe you have nothing to fear for This is as real as the rain My love for you is as deep as a coalmine No, babe you have nothing to fear for This is as real as the rain My love for you is as deep as a coalmine
If you were marked with a bullet I'd jump in front of it I'd rather die for love than die for the want of it Forever alive, forever forward I have no use at all for any more words
I'll take on all of your sorrows for mine my dear, till the days run clear, until they start to shine, coming through your window, head on your pillow, the sight is honey for my mind girl and I've been digging, ever deeper, this love gets easier the more it's sung to, the more it rings true, the more I find the breath to help sing with these miner's lungs...
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