Ok...so I wasn't reading the output of JtR correctly. I purposely added a dummy password to the script I used to come up with the wordlist and that's when I realized I come close enough. So I'm back to that stage on trying to remember what I based my password on...grrrrrr
Well, although I'm kinda happy (sorry) that something weird and mysterious isn't going on, I'm unhappy that this could make things more difficult for you...
On the (small) plus side, you already have JtR compiled, so if you'd like to use it to search for your password, it's a great option.
btcrecover is faster if you have a discrete video card, in terms of guesses per second (and JtR is faster if you don't have one). I also think that btcrecover is the easier option if you already have a good idea of what your password is, but I'm just a teensy bit biased (I'm the author of btcrecover)....
If you do choose to try btcrecover, the tutorial and quick start is here:
https://github.com/gurnec/btcrecover/blob/master/TUTORIAL.md#btcrecover-tutorialLet me know if you have any questions.